WATCH: Former College Football Player Catches Baby Thrown From Burning Building

The child's mother was killed in the fire after tossing her 3-year-old son to waiting arms below.

Orlando, Fla. — A former junior college football player and retired Marine made the catch of a lifetime as a Phoenix apartment burned this week.

Phillip Banks said he responded to the commotion in the apartment complex and saw flames pouring from the third-floor unit and a woman throw her toddler son over the balcony. Banks dove and caught the little boy and cradled him until found more help.

The 30-year-old woman ran back into the apartment to save her eight-year-old daughter.

The young girl got out alive but the children’s mother died in the fire.