‘Get off our lawn’: Florida homeowners yell at man saving neighbor’s life

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — One man was neighborly. One couple wasn’t.

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While a Florida man helped save a man’s life this week, one set of neighbors was apparently more concerned about the condition of their yard, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

In a Facebook post, the sheriff’s office said the unneighborly neighbors yelled at “Tony” to “get off our lawn” and “get the man out of here, have him die somewhere else.” At the time, Tony was trying to assist a man who was having convulsions inside his vehicle, deputies said.

WPEC identified the good Samaritan as Tony Neil.

Neil, who is known in the Palm Beach Gardens area for pushing his lawnmower through the neighborhood, was walking to work Monday when he saw a person having a seizure, WPTV reported.

“Without thinking twice, Tony ran up to the rolling car and grabbed the fender to try and stop it from rolling down the street further,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook.

The car stopped on a neighbor’s lawn, but not before running over Neil’s foot, the sheriff’s office said. Fortunately, he was wearing steel-toed boots and avoided injury.

According to the sheriff’s office, Neil yelled for help because he could not get into the locked car.

“I could not get in and I didn’t know what to do. I was panicking. I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s gone’,” Neil told WPEC. “There was nobody on the street.”

Neil ran down the street and found the victim’s wife, WPTV reported. She called 911 and the victim was saved by paramedics, the television station reported.

“Because of Tony’s actions, we received a call yesterday from the man he helped,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. “The man called us to ask for Tony’s phone number. The man said, ‘I want to talk to Tony. ... He saved my life.’”

On Wednesday, Neil and the victim were reunited, the sheriff’s office said.

“It feels good, but I think anybody would do that, I would hope,” Neil told WPEC. “I’m not a hero. It is amazing, I’m so glad he made it. God put me in his path. There’s a reason for everything. I do believe that.”

“A true neighborhood hero,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook.

The sheriff’s office did not indicate whether deputies spoke with the neighbors angered by the vehicle in their grass.

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