A construction worker is being hailed a hero after foiling an attempted robbery in the northeastern Argentine city of Bernal.
Surveillance video showed the victim, Nicolas, standing next to his vehicle when one of the three suspects ambushed him in broad daylight on Monday.
The assailant hit the swimming instructor in the face and made him fall in the middle of the street while his accomplices waited on two motorcycles to escape.
Nicolas can be seen kicking the attacker, who then began to strangle him.
As he lay unconscious, the construction worker lunged at the assailant and tackled him to the ground while running over his co-worker.
Subsequently, the criminal stood up, climbed onto the back of one of the motorcycles and fled the scene without stealing Nicolas’s personal belongings.
Nicolas told the Argentine news channel TN that he was on his way to visit his son at the facilities of a local soccer club when the assailant approached him while he was taking out a backpack, where he kept money for the purchase of a new cell phone.
‘The guy hit me and the bricklayers were there, they have been working there for a long time, we chatted and got to know each other,’ Nicolas explained.
An assailant approaches Nicolas, a swimming instructor, before a construction worker runs over him and knocks him to the ground on Monday in Bernal, a city in northeastern Argentina.
The assailant began to strangle Nicolas in a failed attempt to steal his backpack.
Nicolás lay on the ground unresponsive for a moment before a construction worker he befriended a while ago came to his defense and attacked the assailant (in a circle)
The assailant ran towards one of his two accomplices (seen on the motorcycles) and fled.
“I yelled at them and one of them recognized me, that’s why he ran away,” he added.
‘Caesar, the big guy, is a boss. When he saw it was me, he jumped on top of one of the criminals.
Nicholas praised Caesar’s brave response.
“It is a liberated zone and fortunately I can tell you that I am fine and no one has to regret an event that could have ended in death,” he said.
‘It was a heroic act by the bricklayer who threw himself on top of the criminals to prevent them from hitting me. They were kicking me in the head.