HOUSTON (AP) -A Houston offensive lineman who passed out while lifting weights has been removed from a ventilator and is expected to leave the hospital intensive care unit on Thursday, a team doctor said.

Trainers administered CPR and used a defibrillator to stabilize 20-year-old Jerrod Butler when he passed out in the weight room on Monday. Team physician Dr. James Muntz said Butler is back on a regular diet.

``If it was going to happen, it couldn't have happened at a better place,'' the player's father, Garland Butler, told Houston television station KRIV. ``It was the right place at the right time with the right folks.''

Butler's parents said they were shocked to see their son on a ventilator after driving to Houston from their home in Allen.

``We knew the gravity of it, with a 300-plus pound son,'' Garland Butler said. ``But (when we saw him) with a tube down his throat, just laying there helpless, it was hard.''