A New Mexico State Police officer says fate led to her being in a position to save a woman from jumping off of a bridge. Officer Rachel Hall accidentally took a wrong turn in her police cruiser and happened upon a woman sitting on the edge of a railway overpass. She says the woman looked in distress, so she carefully approached her to find out what was wrong.
As Hall comforts the woman, her partner arrives on the scene to help and comes over and grabs the woman from behind, preventing her from falling or jumping. "I had my hand on her shoulder and it was pretty tense. But the second that my partner came up and lifted her, she just went limp and we kind of had to walk her over to my unit. She was just kind of overcome with, 'Wow, somebody did something for me,'" she recalls.
Once the woman is safely away from the ledge, Hall tries to find out what’s troubling her. The woman explains that she has 13 children and had lost her husband and two of her kids to COVID all within a year. "I just reminded her constantly, you've got more children and you'll see them one day, I promise you that. But today you need to be with your family. You need to be strong for them and be that parent that they can lean on," Hall says. She hopes that this story will make people realize that there’s always someone to talk to when you need help.