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 But though he was injured in the process and authorities say he
saved the woman's life, he maintains that he's no hero and that he
would do it again.
"I just wished I would've grabbed her and held on to her," Navidad
said. "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do anything."
Both Navidad and the woman hit the concrete hard from the impact
about 15 minutes after the Raiders' 23-19 loss to the Tennessee
Titans.
Navidad said he was among several people pleading with the woman not
to jump as he positioned himself to try catching her. When she
plunged about 45 feet from the upper deck at the O.co Coliseum,
Navidad, with his arms open, ended up breaking her fall.
The 61-year-old Marine Corps veteran was hospitalized overnight and
was recuperating from a severely bruised arm at his home in
Stockton.
"He simply saved her life," Alameda County sheriff's Sgt. J.D.
Nelson said. "Otherwise, she'd be dead."
The woman remained hospitalized in critical condition. Her name has
not been released.
A Raiders season ticket holder, Navidad said he was with a buddy
lingering near the Al Davis commemorative flame at the Coliseum when
he saw and heard the commotion around the woman, who was on the
ledge in the upper deck concourse area that's covered by tarp.
"I yelled up at her yelling, 'Don't do it, don't do it. Please don't
jump,'" Navidad said. "And she started to descend and she let
herself go."
Navidad said his military instincts kicked in as he lunged toward
the woman trying to catch her.
"He couldn't grab and hold her, and that's what bothers him," his
wife, Lora Navidad, said Monday. "He had no fear or thought for his
own well-being."
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Navidad said well-wishers have besieged him, including Raiders' hall
of fame cornerback Willie Brown, who visited personally. Team
officials came to his home, and he received a phone call from Hall
of Fame wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff.
Nelson, who visited Navidad in the hospital Sunday evening, called
him "a hero."
Navidad, a father of four with 12 grandkids who works as an
inventory surveillance worker for the General Services
Administration in nearby French Camp, Calif., modestly thinks
otherwise.
"They want to label me a hero, but how do you define a hero?"
Navidad asks. "I would've done it for anybody."
He plans to be at the Raiders' next home game against the Kansas
City Chiefs on Dec. 15.
The incident in Oakland was the second such fall at an NFL game
Sunday. In Baltimore, a 48-year-old man was hospitalized with
life-threatening injuries after he fell on some stairs at M&T Bank
Stadium during the Ravens game against the New York Jets,
authorities said.
Last weekend, two fans were injured in Orchard Park, N.Y., after one
fan slid down a railing from the upper deck of Ralph Wilson Stadium
during the Buffalo Bills' home game against the Jets. Both were
briefly hospitalized and released.
On the NFL's opening day this year, a fan died from a fall off a
pedestrian overpass outside Candlestick Park in San Francisco, and
two others were injured when a railing collapsed at the Colts' game
against the Raiders in Indianapolis.
[Associated
Press; TERRY COLLINS]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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