A TEAM OF LIFESAVERS
Heroes rescue 2 jumpers
COPS AND firefighters saved two men who threatened to jump from the Triborough and Manhattan Bridges on Thursday.
At about 4:50 a.m., Probationary Firefighters Richard Vergara, 34, and Raunedys Peña, 29, were in separate cars heading to the FDNY Academy on Randalls Island when they spotted a man climbing the wall of the Triborough to jump.
“I was on the Grand Central, about to get onto the Triborough, when directly in front of me this man runs across and starts to climb the wall to the bridge to jump,” Vergara said.
Vergara stopped his car on the bridge, got out and approached the man. “I asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ and he already had one leg over.”
Vergara grabbed the man, pulled him back to safety and started to struggle with him a bit when Peña rolled up. Peña helped hold him until first responders arrived. As the two stood with the man, who only spoke Spanish, Peña translated.
“He just needed some help,” Peña said.
Vergara and Peña are expected to graduate on Oct. 18.
About two hours later, at about 6:50 a.m., a man called 911 and said he was going to jump from the Manhattan Bridge, but he didn’t want to hit any pedestrians.
Emergency Service Unit Truck 1 Detective Robert McGee, and officers Danny Edling and Royston Charles, of the Aviation Unit, were among the officers who responded. ESU officers spoke to the man for about 25 minutes before grabbing him from behind and pulling him to safety.
“He wouldn’t say anything besides ‘I wanna jump. I wanna jump.’ Over and over again,” McGee said. “I kept asking him ‘What’s the problem?’. . . And he just refused to talk to me.”