“I had no other choice. It was either a man save a man, or not believe in myself. So I just reached in and did what I had to do.”
A Michigan powerlifter is being hailed as a hero — indeed, a superhero in the news report below — after lifting a Jeep® Cherokee that was pinning a man to the ground outside his gym in Ypsilanti.
Ryan Belcher, owner of the Absolute Power gym, ran outside after hearing a crash to find a Jeep flipped upside down and trapping a 36-year-old man, whose torso was half trapped beneath the car and half outside of it, pinned against a speed limit sign.
In an interview with Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy he noted,
When I first approached the vehicle, there was a good four men there, and they were all trying to move this vehicle and I seen it wasn’t happening. And I figured what a better time now to use what I know I can actually do.
Belcher trains five days per week and has been described as having PRs of a 950-pound squat, 530-pound bench press, and 800-pound deadlift, although we saw him pulling 865 pounds on his Instagram just last week.
I knew if I could swing the vehicle in a certain direction I could free him from that pole. So I just stuck my arms in and I just, I don’t know, I just grabbed it and lifted up and started pushing.
The man was freed and rushed to hospital with internal bleeding, where nurses told Belcher that that if he hadn’t arrived at the scene of the accident, the man probably wouldn’t be alive today. Belcher made sure to visit the man in hospital and noted that the two men “just cried together” before the victim told him, “When I start walking, I’m gonna be at your gym.”
Featured image via WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7 on YouTube
