Rookie Cop On First Patrol Help Saves Suicidal Woman Off Freeway Ledge

SOUTH PASADENA, CA - Officers on Sunday stopped a 20-year-old woman threatened to jump from an overpass onto the Pasadena (110) Freeway.

Police were dispatched at about 6:10 p.m. to the freeway overpass at Prospect Avenue and Grevelia Street in South Pasadena on reports of a possibly suicidal female, according to Sgt. Spencer Louie of the South Pasadena Police Department.

Cpl. Juan Salcido and Officer Brian Wiley, the first police personnel at the scene, found the woman -- identified only as a South Pasadena resident-- sitting on the ledge of the overpass facing the freeway, Louie said.

"She was hysterical and yelling while she was talking on her cell phone, threatening to jump," Louie said.

Salcido, a nine-year veteran of the force, approached the woman and, while she was distracted by her phone, grabbed her around the waist to pull her off the ledge, Louie said.

Wiley, a recent police academy graduate on his first day of patrol, helped bring the struggling woman onto the sidewalk, Louie said.

The woman was taken to a hospital for an evaluation, police said.

--City News Service, photo via Shutterstock