After having a home intruder break into his house, an 82-year-old man in Florida fought off the unwelcome visitor, saying that he acted solely on his instinct.
Ronald Lucas spoke with Fox8 about his heroics, saying that the situation continued for some time but that he was never afraid of a fight.
“Every time I’d hit him, he’d hit me, on and on and on. This is just what he did,” Lucas told the media outlet.
He continued, saying that he fights for everybody and that he doesn’t care who it is.
Lucas told the outlet that once he saw the man break-in, he took off for his wife, who had just had an operation. When he came face-to-face with the intruder, the fight began.
“I just got in between them, and boy, that was it,” he recalled. “That’s when I started taking him out. I had to do it. He knows how to fight. That guy took on a Special Forces guy in Vietnam and -- low and behold, boy, every time I made a move, he knew what I was going to do before I did it.”
Eventually, after fighting for a while, Lucas said he was able to get the man outside of his home.
“I hit him so hard he fell all the way down the steps and hit the rocks,” Lucas said. “That’s when I came at him with the cane again. I kept fighting him all the way up to that highway up there, and finally, another guy comes along and says, ‘You better leave that old man alone!’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s too late. I’ve already beat the tar out of him.’”
Lucas suffered bruises from the fight with the intruder, but he says he would do it again if needed.
“He might hold a grudge if he gets out,” Lucas said. “But if he does, he comes looking for it. He’s going to find it.”
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has identified the intruder and is working to file charges with the state attorney’s office.