Dallas police<\/a> were called to a bridge along East Camp Wisdom Road, where officers found a woman experiencing a mental health crisis sitting dangerously close to the edge, high above the S.L.R. Thornton Freeway. <\/p>\n“She’s about to jump,” an officer is heard saying in the body camera footage.<\/p>\n
As officers tried to help, the woman suddenly went over the railing, left hanging above the freeway. <\/p>\n
Without hesitation, they grabbed her arm, holding on as she dangled in mid-air. <\/p>\n
A sergeant arrived, helping the officers pull the woman back over the railing. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.<\/p>\n
“One of the things to recognize is just how intense those situations are,” said Dr. Peter Thomas, a psychologist and the vice president of Amplified Minds, which provides free mental health services.<\/p>\n
“Most people in situations like this are in a very acute state of being overwhelmed, not necessarily in this fixed ideation that they want to die,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n
He said these types of situations are a lot more common than people think \u2014 and the officers did everything right.<\/p>\n
“Secure and then de-escalate,” said Thomas. “But I think it’s important to know that these situations can be just as dramatic for the individuals involved just as much as they can be for the first responders, as well.”<\/p>\n
The officers’ actions that day are a powerful reminder of the courage and compassion their job demands. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every day, first responders are required to make split-second decisions, and sometimes, those decisions can mean the difference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,4081,2125],"class_list":{"0":"post-113733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-dallas-police-department","12":"tag-mental-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}