UFC fighter Chris Weidman rushed to save the life of a Long

Editorial by Mystic Mac

To his rivals the sight of UFC Middleweight champion Chris Weidman inspires fear.

To one badly injured 94-year-old Long Island woman, it brought unfathomable relief.

A blood-soaked Anna Croenlein, fearing for her life after breaking open her head in a fall, was screaming for help on her Dix Hills driveway when the neighbor she barely knew came to the rescue.

Weidman helped stanch Croenlein's bleeding and called 911 — and even stayed around to mop up her blood after she was rushed to the hospital.

Croenlein didn't know Weidman's name and had never heard of the UFC. But she's now one of the feared fighter's biggest fans.

"I want to thank him because he saved my life," Croenlein told the Daily News Tuesday, still sporting a two-inch gash on the back of her head. "He is really a champion. Believe me."

Croenlein's brush with death came a day after she celebrated her 94th birthday.

The tough-as-nails great grandmother was chowing down on her morning bowl of Cream of Wheat on Oct. 16 when she slipped off an ottoman and slammed her head on a glass table.

In seconds, Croenlein was covered in blood.

"It was a beauty," Croenlein said sarcastically. "There was so much blood I didn't think I had blood anymore."

Croenlein tried to call her daughter, who had just stepped out for a dentist's appointment, but couldn't operate the phone.

Not knowing what else to do, she walked out to the garage — leaving behind a trail of blood — and started screaming for help in her driveway under a torrential downpour.

Anna Croenlein, 94, fell at her home and stumbled outside into her driveway while leaving a trail of blood. Weidman answered her calls for help.

"I stood out there in the rain, and I screamed and screamed," Croenlein said. "Not a soul."

Weidman, who lives just a few doors down, was in his driveway cleaning out his car when he heard a strange sound that he couldn't quite make out.

At one point, he looked over towards its direction and thought he saw a figure in his neighbor's driveway. "But the person's body language wasn't showing that they were yelling," Weidman, 30, told The News.

Weidman hopped in his car and headed towards the sound, his window rolled down. Rain was spraying in his face, but as he drove past Croenlein's house, he heard the unmistakable sound of a woman pleading for help.

Weidman burst out of his vehicle and rushed up to Croenlein.

"She was holding her neck and there was blood everywhere," Weidman said. "It was the worst amount of blood I've ever seen."

Weidman brought his wounded neighbor inside the garage, sat her down and quickly dialed 911. But he twice failed to get through to an emergency dispatcher.

So Weidman called up a cop buddy and told him he needed an ambulance immediately.

Croenlein was so bloody that Weidman couldn't tell where it was coming from. "At first, I was thinking she got stabbed or stabbed herself with a knife," he said.

Once he realized the blood was pouring out of the back of her head, he grabbed a towel and pressed it against the wound. He checked her pulse every few minutes.

All the while, he was consoling Croenlein, who has five great grandchildren.

"She said, 'I just wanted to live one more year,'" Weidman recalled. "I said, 'You are not dying today. This is not your day to die.'"

Finally, an ambulance arrived. Croenlein was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, where she was diagnosed with a minor concussion. It took nine staples to close up the gash on her head.

After the ambulance had taken off, Weidman stuck around, cleaning up the blood in Croenlein's garage.

All he could think about was performing the same chore three years ago following the death of his uncle who fell down a flight of stairs.

"We had to clean up his blood," said Weidman, a father of two who is 12-0 in the UFC. "It was the worst experience of my life."

Croenlein's daughter said Weidman stopped by the house the next day asking how her mother was doing.

"He was very, very thoughtful," the daughter, Walli Amato, said. "His kindness is something I appreciate more than I can say."

Five days after the incident, Croenlein shrugged off the injury. "I feel fine," she said as she stepped out into her garage with the aid of a cane.

"If you were raised in a foreign country and you come here, you've got to be a little bit tough," added the Romanian-born Croenlein, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1940 at the age of 20.

She said she was looking forward to expressing her gratitude to her hero neighbor, who she refers to only as "that young man."

"He was just a very, very sweet man," Croenlein said. "Like a mother who was caring for her baby."

Added Croenlein: "That young man is the nicest person I ever met."

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