A homeless man looking for a place to sleep early Tuesday morning came upon an attempted rape behind a bus stop and intervened, stopping the attack using a brick and a stick he found on the ground nearby.

Ketrell Ferguson told NBC4 that he heard screams and initially though it was a robbery, but realized it was a rape and that he needed to do help.

“As soon as he lifted his head up, I smacked him with the stick hard as I could in his head, and he fell off the lady, stumbled,” Ferguson said. “And I smacked him again and I just kept smacking him with the stick, I mean, as hard as I could.”

The attack took place around 3:30 a.m. at the very northern end of Mount Pleasant in the 3600 block of 16th Street NW, at a bus stop near the Woodner apartment complex.

Police said they arrested a man they found bleeding nearby about an hour later, NBC4 reported. Police said he initially offered the woman money for sex and then attacked her when she refused.

“Even though I’m going through hard times, God put in me in a place where I could help,” Ferguson told NBC4. “I was at the right place at right time.”