Shouts of ‘Pull Him Back’ Then Rescuers Do Just That. (Brooklyn Bridge)

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

A man who was dangling from the Brooklyn Bridge was pulled to safety by police officers Sunday afternoon as scores of people watched from the pedestrian walkway, from the street below and from cars on the bridge that had been halted during the rescue.

When the officers arrived, the man, wearing a gray shirt and dark pants, was holding on to a railing on the southeast end of the bridge near the ramp to Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. One foot was on a narrow ledge; the other hung in the air. Many feet below was an empty parking lot.

Dozens of police officers and firefighters, along with emergency vehicles, came onto the bridge and into the parking lot about 4:30 p.m. The man, whose identity was not immediately known, had both hands on the railing, but he was below eye level of the officers who had carefully approached him.

Two or three officers seemed to take his hands while other officers waited a few feet away. At one point, another officer went over the railing himself and began to approach the man from the ledge.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/nyregion/on-brooklyn-bridge-dangling-man-is-rescued.html

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I've heard of instances where people chant "Jump! Jump!" instead.

[PDJane]

1. And that's beyond inhumane. I'm glad this turned out well.

[StarsInHerHair]

2. well they didn't here

nt

[melm00se]

3. goes to show you that

a mob can be turned by one or two members acting at the right time.

[CBHagman]

4. That's some picture they have of the rescue.

:scared: It certainly conveys how situations like this turn on a split-second decision, and of course the determination of the firefighters and police officers involved.

And here's the best part:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/nyregion/on-brooklyn-bridge-dangling-man-is-rescued.html?_r=1

Slowly, though, the officers hauled him up and over the railing.

Cheers rose from the bridge and Old Fulton Street.

[rasputin1952]

5. Years ago, the cries were, "Jump!"

"Hurry up, I'm on my way to lunch" and other such horrors.

I hope this man gets the help he needs, and that his future cab be brighter.

We have moved forward to some degree..."pull him back!", beats the hell out of "jump!"...there is hope for us yet.

[roguevalley]

6. before 911.

[Princess Turandot]

7. My older brother once hauled a guy down from the Brooklyn Bridge..

He was in the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit. In this case, the guy had climbed high up on one of the cables that rise up to the bridge's tower. When my brother got close to him, the man started jumping up and down, causing the cable to move. IIRC, the guy wasn't suicidal. It was more like grandiose thinking. He began demanding news cameras before he would cooperate with being escorted down. As a result, my brother was in quite a nice photo spread in the next day's Daily News' centerfold!

Although he was attached to a security line connected to the cable, he said it was more than a little unnerving.