Charles Ramsey , the Cleveland man whose his actions lead to the dramatic rescue of kidnap victims Amanda Berry, Berry’s daughter, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight insists he’s not a hero.
In a sit-down interview with local TV, Ramsey admitted he’s gotten about two hours of sleep since Monday’s dramatic events.
Ramsey conceded that he was initially puzzled about Berry’s calls for help because he knew that Ariel Castro didn’t have a “girlfriend.” Fortunately, he took action, and the rest is history.
When the news anchors asked Ramsey about what it felt like becoming an international internet sensation as a result of his initial media exposure, he downplayed the whole fame thing:
“They keep saying I’m a hero. Let me tell you something, I’m an American, and I’m a human being. I’m just like you. I work for a living. There was a woman in distress, so why turn your back on that?”
Ramsey also admitted that he was concerned to some degree about getting into an altercation with suspect Ariel Castro. “I was doing something I had no business doing,” Ramsey said, in reference to prying open the door so that Amanda could escape, even though he was doing a good deed, which is perhaps the understatement of the year.
At the conclusion of the interview, Ramsey said simply and eloquently, “God smiled on somebody, you know what I mean?”
In a separate interview, Ramsey dismissed the idea of collecting a reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of Berry and the others, noting that any monies should go to the victims:
“I tell you what you do, give [the reward] to them. Because if folks been following this case since last night, you been following me since last night, you know I got a job anyway. Just went picked it up, paycheck.”
Watch Charles Ramsey downplay his hero status in this interview: