David Verburg, the champion sprinter who won the 4×400-meter relay at the 2016 Rio Olympics, recently published a video of himself sprinting into a busy intersection to save the reptile.

Verburg had been driving down the Florida highway when he saw the tortoise. After swerving his car to avoid hitting the creature, he made a U-turn, parked in a turning lane and ran into the street so he could scoop it into his arms and run back to the vehicle.

“My shoes were untied and loose, so as I started running, I low-key thought ‘This was a terrible idea,’ but I already started running,” Verburg told Runners World

He waited until he was in a more secluded area before getting out of his car and putting the tortoise down under some trees.

Verburg, who is a self-proclaimed animal lover, guesses that it was a gopher tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

“It happens all the time in Florida. I move a tortoise/turtle whenever I see one. I just so happened to catch this one on camera,” Verburg told the news outlet.

(WATCH the video below) – Photo by David Verburg

So this happened today. pic.twitter.com/yIVajtQKA4

— David Verburg,OLY (@AdiVerb) October 28, 2018

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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