Charles Ramsey is being hailed a hero after the Cleveland resident helped free three women—Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight—who had allegedly been held captive for over a decade by neighbor Ariel Castro and his two brothers, Pedro and Onil.
And it was a scream that sounded "like a car had hit a kid" that told Ramsey that something was very, very wrong right outside his home.
Ramsey recounted to CNN's Anderson Cooper the events on Monday leading up to the escape of the three women, along with Berry's 6-year-old daughter, whom police say had been conceived in captivity.
Ramsey said that upon hearing the scream, he bolted from his living room while still holding a Big Mac he was eating and rushed to Castro's home, where he found Berry.
"Amanda said, 'I'm stuck in here, help get me out,'" recalled Ramsey, who helped break down the house's door with the help of a neighbor who had also heard the screams.
"And she's like, 'I've been trapped in here, he won't let me out, me and my baby,'" Ramsey claimed Berry told him. "I said, 'Well, we ain't going to talk no more, come on."
Ramsey, who became an instant viral-video sensation, said he ended up kicking through the bottom of the door, allowing Berry to crawl outside.
"She grabs her baby, which threw me off, all right, so fine," he said, recalling his shock that Berry, 27, had a child with her.
Berry ran to another neighbor's house, where she called 911 and alerted police that two other women were still in the house.
The Castro brothers were taken into custody shortly afterward, and when police searched the house, they found ropes and chains that were reportedly used to restrain the three women.
Ramsey, who works as a dishwasher at a restaurant, told Cooper that he had never seen Berry—or DeJesus and Knight—before Monday.
"That woman didn't come out the house," he said. "The only kids that came out the house were two little girls."
Berry, who was 17 when she disappeared, was last seen in 2003 leaving her job at a Burger King.
DeJesus, now 23, vanished in 2004 on her way home from school, while Knight, now 32, was last seen in 2002 at a cousin's house, which was located in area where both Berry and DeJesus has gone missing.