Yahoo Sports Mom Thanks Man Who Stopped Flying Puck from Hitting Her 4-Year-Old Child: 'Literally Saved My Son's Life'
"He prevented a life-changing event from happening," said mom Asia Davis
A Cleveland woman is thanking the man who saved her son from getting hit by an errant hockey puck
Asia Davis posted a video on TikTok showing her 4-year-old son nearly being hit by the puck at the Cleveland Monsters game on April 11
The good Samaritan – later identified as Andrew Podolak – "prevented a life-changing event from happening," Davis said
A mother who filmed the moment when her child nearly got hit by an errant hockey puck during a game last week is thanking the man who saved her son.
Asia Davis and 4-year-old son Nasir were watching the Cleveland Monsters take on the Laval Rocket on April 11 when the scary moment occurred near the end of the American Hockey League game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse — and Davis caught the entire sequence on video.
“We’re watching the game. It’s getting real good. It’s getting hectic,” Asia said in her viral TikTok post. “Towards the end [of the] third period, there was a lot of fights. Ref got hit in the mouth. Stuff was going on.”
She continued, “Out of nowhere, this puck comes out of heaven, straight towards my son’s head.”
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In the video, a man seated next to them is then seen blocking Nasir’s head with his arm and grabs the puck, as the young boy flinches but is unscathed.
“My son had chips of ice in his hair, okay?” Asia said. “If you know anything about a hockey puck, it’s more dense than a baseball. That thing is a flying [traumatic brain injury].”
Yet in the hectic moments after the near-accident, the mother didn’t get a chance to ask the man for his name and thank him for what he had done.
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“I feel sick when I think about it, because I have the reaction time of a sloth,” Asia joked in her TikTok. “This dude literally saved my son’s life. He prevented a life-changing event from happening.”
“TikTok, I need your help finding this man," she added.
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A day later, the post had gone viral was brought to the attention of Monsters team officials, who found the man — 28-year-old Andrew Podolak — and invited the trio to the April 13 game as special guests, according to ABC affiliate WEWS.
"I went to sleep, and when I woke up around 10 o'clock in the morning, I had a DM from him, and it just said, 'Everything happens for a reason. I'm glad the little man is OK.' I looked at his profile, and I was like, this is him!" Davis told the outlet.
During the April 13 game, Asia, Nasir and Podolak dropped the ceremonial first puck and met players on the team — and the mom had another chance to thank her hero in person for his kind act.
“I’m just so grateful," Asia told CBS affiliate WOIO.
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