Waiting to be served coffee at a gas station in Midlothian, Texas at 6.15am, the last thing 30 year-old firefighter, Daniel Gaskey expected was to suddenly find himself in a the middle of an armed robbery.

From behind him a masked man wielding a fixed-blade knife suddenly approached and pushed him aside, telling the woman behind the till, this will go quick and easy, I’m just here for the money.

Little did the 19 year old robber, Dylan Bearden know that the man he’d just pushed his way past was a former 8 year veteran of the U.S Marines who’d been deployed in Iraq and also had wrestled in high school.

Gaskey says he took a few seconds to assess the situation, and then, realizing that Bearden wasn’t paying any attention to him, he instinctively made his move.

I just launched on his back, put my arm around his head and around his neck, and just rotated and kind of tossed him on to the ground, Gaskey recalls in an interview with KTVT News.

I landed on top of him to just stun him. Once I got on the ground I was on top of him…I was able to get the knife away and kind of threw it out of his reach.

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After that Bearden said, I’m not fighting anymore, but Gaskey wasn’t taking any chances and kept him pinned to the floor for five minutes until the police arrived. The suspect would later be charged with aggravated burglary.

Gaskey, who has a wife and two kids, was undoubtedly the right man in the right place at the right time, but he was quick to brush aside any suggestion that he was a hero.

Sometimes there’s a job that needs to get done,” Gaskey told NBC News. “You have to be willing to stand up and help each other.”