This is the miraculous moment that Muhammad Ali saved a suicidal man who was threatening to jump from a ninth-floor ledge.
The late boxing champion , who died at the age of 74 this morning, left onlookers stunned as he dangled out of a window and talked the man down within 20 minutes after police negotiators had been trying for hours.
The baying crowd watching from the ground had chillingly urged the "distraught" man to jump, but Ali offered a beacon of hope by promising to help the man find a job, this CBS News report shows.
Ali, dressed in a suit and tie, had raced to the scene a mile from his house "driving up the wrong side of the street" when his manager told him about what was going on.
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CBS News / KNXT)He told the man: “You’re my brother. I love you and I wouldn’t lie to you. You got to listen. I want you to come home with me, meet some friends of mine.”
The boxing legend then put his arms around the vulnerable 21-year-old and took the man to hospital in his Rolls-Royce.
As he walked away from the scene onlookers chanted “USA! Digs Ali! USA! Digs Ali!” but rather than stopping for fans Ali focused all his time on the unidentified man.
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CBS News / KNXT)Read more:Muhammad Ali's final tweets included Prince tribute and birthday message to Bono
Ali's public relations manager Howard Bingham revealed: “I told Ali there was a guy up here on a building about a mile from his house and maybe he could get through.
“About four minutes later, Ali comes driving up the wrong side of the street in his Rolls-Royce with his lights blinking."
The three-time former world champion, widely considered among the greatest heavyweights in the history of the sport, passed away this morning after being taken to an Arizona hospital with respiratory issues.
Ali had suffered for 35 years with Parkinson’s disease, having been diagnosed three years after his retirement in 1981.
His family's spokesman Bob Gunnell confirmed Ali's death in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday evening local time.
The funeral will take place in Ali's home town of Louisville, Kentucky.
Michael Parkinson led the tributes, describing Ali as a "graceful and beautiful man".
The presenter, 81, spoke out about his four famous interviews with the boxer, and said: "He was the biggest star they've ever had boxing, and maybe ever will have."
