Ex-marine John Keller says he wasn't trying to be a hero when he used a kayak, a hotwired boat and an air mattress — along with his smarts and brawn — to fend off thugs and save more than 200 people in his New Orleans apartment building during Hurricane Katrina.

"I really didn't think about what I was doing, I was just doing it," the six-foot-seven, 260-pound New Orleans native told the Edmonton Journal.

"I didn't really think about it until I read the paper and it listed blow by blow what I did. I was like, ‘Damn, I didn't really think I was doing all this.'"

Keller's Herculean story is one of two in the first episode of Proper Television's new series "Hardcore Heroes," which premiered in January on History.

Thanks to his fearless efforts and unlimited resourcefulness, John Keller saved 244 people – half of whom were elderly and/or disabled – from what would probably have amounted to certain death, according to NOLA.com.

He still lives in the building today.

(READ the story in the Edmonton Journal)

— Hardcore Heroes heads to Canada in 2014; episode listing