Police help prevent two potential suicides

An armed suicidal man in a vehicle parked at the MidHudson Regional Hospital surrendered early Wednesday after negotiators spent about two hours convincing him not to harm himself, police said.

Town of Poughkeepsie police said they were notified about the man around 4 a.m. Wednesday and, upon arriving at the hospital’s emergency room parking lot, found him threatening to use a handgun to kill himself.

Members of the police department’s crisis negotiations unit, along with the same unit from the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office, eventually convinced the man to surrender without incident, police said. They did not say if they gun was loaded.

The man was safely taken to the hospital for mental health evaluation and treatment, police said.

In an unrelated incident, town police on Tuesday prevented a suicidal 19-year-old woman from jumping from the Walkway Over the Hudson.

About 7:30 a.m., police were called to a home in the town regarding the same woman possibly being suicidal. When officers arrived, the woman was “face down and unresponsive,” according to a press release.

The woman was taken to MidHudson Regional Hospital but fled on foot a short time later and refused a city police officer’s commands to stop, town police said. The officer chased the woman, who eventually made her way onto the Walkway Over the Hudson and then tried to climb over the railing.

With the help of a Lloyd police officer, the city police officer restrained the woman, and she was returned to the hospital for a mental health evaluation and treatment.