COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KDVR) — FOX21’s sister station in Denver is hearing from a Colorado Springs man who actually saved the life of a United States president.

Larry Buendorf, 86, of Colorado Springs was a Secret Service agent who spotted a gun in a crowd and took down the woman wielding it during an assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford.

“Afterwards you look at it and kind of go, did I do everything I was supposed to do?” Buendorf said.

On Sept. 5, 1975, Buendorf was traveling with Ford in Sacramento when a member of the notorious Manson Family tried to kill the president.

“The way that came down was, Squeaky Fromme of course was in the crowd, and what I saw was her hand coming up with a gun in it. And I just simply stepped in front of the president and took the gun away from her before she could fire a round,” he said.

Larry Buendorf (front, in sunglasses) on September 5, 1975, in Sacramento, California. Later that day, he spotted a gun-wielding woman in a crowd just a few feet from the president. He wrestled the weapon from her hands and took her to the ground, thwarting the first of two assassination attempts on President Gerald Ford that month. (Photo courtesy Gerald Ford Presidential Library)

Buendorf has a unique place in history, he’s one of the few people who’ve been in the same situation as those Secret Service agents in Pennsylvania who rushed to protect former President Donald Trump.

“You know, from the Secret Service perspective, you elect ’em, we protect ’em,” Buendorf said. “You like to think that you made a difference, and I hope that I did.”

Buendorf protected Ford during frequent visits to the president’s home in Beaver Creek.

“I headed up his ski team that skied with him on the mountain, so I traveled with him. We were pretty close,” he said.

He stayed well after Ford left office, working in the former president’s security detail until 1993, spending five months a year with Ford in Colorado. After that, he joined the United States Olympic Committee as chief of security where he stayed until about six years ago.

As Buendorf watched the assassination attempt on Trump unfold on TV Saturday, he said the Secret Service response he witnessed was textbook.

“They reacted just the way they’re trained to do and that is cover and evacuate. And they did that,” he said. “That’s our job. We’re not political. They could be Democrats or Republicans or whatever, but the office is the one that we protect and the person that holds that office becomes our primary objective.”