Fabricio Werdum, former UFC heavyweight champ, helps save drowning teenagers
Fabricio Werdum, a former UFC heavyweight champion, spent Sunday at the beach with family near his home in Torrance, California. About an hour into their trip he noticed two teenagers struggling in the ocean about 77 yards (three-quarters of a football field) from land and a local fire department arriving to help, as reported by MMA Junkie.
Werdum, 41, noticed only one lifeguard and decided to rush into the water to help. MMA Junkie translated Werdum’s comments, made in Portuguese to the Brazilian website AGFight.com.
“When we saw the fireman’s car, the car stopped in front of us. I said I was going to help, and Karine (his wife) wasn’t sure, because it was dangerous. But when I looked, there were two tiny heads at sea yelling ‘help.’ They were very far, about 70 meters away. When the lifeguard grabbed the board by himself, I took off my coat and ran. I took the orange floater, threw it across my chest, and I arrived with him, a little further ahead even. I told him to get the girl, who was screaming a lot, and I got the boy, who was already limp. I was able to get him, and we swam toward the beach. …
“Then, at shore, an old man helped me. The waves were big. The girl sank about three times.”
Werdum told AGFight he spoke with a local security official first. In video shot by his wife, Werdum is shown walking the boy to shore with the help of a bystander. The video shows a lifeguard helping a woman to shore nearby.
“Wow, my heart was beating a million,” Werdum said. “It’s an extreme situation. The heart goes to a million. It’s worse than a fight. It’s not even close.”
Werdum is serving a two-year suspension by the United States Anti-Doping Agency that was levied in September.
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