FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – After a Broward County man risked his life to save a woman being attacked, he was awarded a medal of valor for his life-saving act.
On Thursday, the special medal of valor was presented at the Broward County Commission meeting to Edwin Zamora.
During the meeting, Broward County Mayor Steve Geller played out the scary scene and Zamora’s act of heroism before the commission, asking the question, “What would you do if you saw someone being attacked?”
For Zamora, the answer was easy.
“I guess I was in the right place at the right time,” he said.
Zamora was waiting in his truck for his work schedule to begin when he heard a woman screaming for help from an alley near East Las Olas Boulevard.
Security video captured the woman walking down an alley alone early in the morning when she was attacked by a stranger. The man is seen then slamming her down to the ground and attempting to drag her.
Without knowing if the man was armed, Zamora grabbed a steel pipe from his truck and ran to her rescue. Zamora scared off the woman’s attacker, called the police, and waited until an ambulance arrived.
Local 10 News spoke with Zamora a month ago about the attack and his quick thinking to intervene.
“It was a happy cry to say, ‘Thank you, thank you,’” he said at the time.
Today, the father of three says he doesn’t see himself as a hero — just as a man who did the right thing.
“When you have family, you have kids, you have daughters, wife, you think about them, too,” he explained. “I think everybody should be doing the same thing, helping another person. That’s the way I feel.”
Zamora was also honored with a proclamation dedicating November 4 as “Edwin Zamora Day” in Broward County.