TORONTO -- A former football player and U.S. Marine is being praised for saving the life of a young boy who was thrown from a burning third-floor apartment balcony. 

The fire happened on the morning of July 3 at a three-storey apartment complex in Phoenix, Ariz.

Phillip Blanks, 28, was at home when he heard a commotion outside his building and went to see what was going on. Blanks said he heard someone yell there was a fire. “So I scrambled and grabbed all my things,” Blanks said during an interview with local media. “I wasn’t able to find my shoes on time. So I ran outside barefoot.”

In one eyewitness video, people can be heard shouting at the woman trapped on the balcony of a third-floor apartment engulfed in smoke and flames to throw her child down. People can also be heard yelling at the woman to jump down herself.

Footage shows Blanks sprinting towards the building and diving to catch the three-year-old boy just as his mother flung him from the balcony and right before he hit the ground. “He was twirling in the air like a propeller,” said Blanks as he recalled the moment. “I just did my best.”

Blanks, who served as a U.S. Marine and played football in high school and as a wide receiver at Saddleback College in Southern California, said he was simply focused on helping out. “I just had tunnel vision on the patio,” Blanks said. “And when the boy got thrown off the balcony, it was just me and the boy. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t see anything else.”

Other video taken at the same building shows a number of children being dropped from upper-floor balconies and being caught by people with a sheet below.

Officials said the toddler and his eight-year-old sister were critically injured and were taken to a local burn centre, according to a local report. Another woman was taken to hospital for a leg injury. The children’s’ mother reportedly died in the fire.

More than 100 firefighters from the Phoenix Fire Department responded to the scene, but none were injured. “It was chaotic. There was just a lot going on,” Blanks said. A fire department spokesperson said eight units were damaged by the fire.

Police are investigating a cause but do not suspect foul play was a factor.