Scott Township police chief rescues suicidal woman from bridge
A motorist driving over the Veterans Bridge in Scott Township about 2 p.m. July 25 phoned the police department about a disturbing situation.
The caller told dispatchers about seeing an emotionally distraught woman on one side of the bridge looking over the waist-high wall down to the valley more than 30 feet below.
While one side of the bridge has a pedestrian walkway with a six-foot tall fence barrier, the opposite side, where the woman was seen, had no walkway next to the concrete wall.
Sgt. Steve Fury was the first officer to respond to the call and approached the woman in order to engage in a conversation, but she immediately reached for the top of the wall, which prompted him to radio for additional help. Eventually the woman straddled the wall with one leg over the edge.
When Scott Township police Chief James Secreet arrived at the scene, he too approached the woman, who became very upset. He then sat on the edge of the sidewalk opposite the woman and maintained a dialogue with her for the next two hours.
In addition to officers in the Scott Township Police Department, four negotiators from the South Hills Area Council of Government who are trained to handle such incidents arrived and saw that Secreet had established a viable rapport with the woman and agreed to let him proceed.
But as time passed, the situation appeared to deteriorate as the woman became ever more threatening to herself. To get closer to the woman, Secreet offered her a bottle of water. When she accepted, he cautiously crawled across the roadway on his hands and knees, then carefully handed her the water bottle and sat down on the roadway bedside her.
As he sat there for the next 30 minutes, he remarked that he was having trouble with his leg and told her he had to stand up, and was about five feet from the woman. He then decided to create a diversion by yelling for the individual she knew who was expected to be coming down to talk to her. He also yelled to the police officers to bring her another drink.
When the woman turned her head to the right by the distraction, Secreet jumped into action, rushed her, gave her a bear hug and pulled her off the wall to safety. Other officers, including Sgt. Jeff Skees, who witnessed the last 40 minutes of the episode and provided the details of her rescue, helped secure her.
“That is just our job, officers do it every day, I was just fortunate enough to get a rapport going with the subject and was able to grab her off the bridge edge to get her the help she needed,” Secreet said in an emailed statement.
They took the woman to a local hospital where she was admitted into the mental health ward for an involuntary commitment in a mental health institute for an emergency psychiatric evaluation.
“When Chief Secreet took action the situation had become dire,” Skees said. “We saw subtle signs that she was mustering the courage to jump.”
Skees said that during Secreet’s 36 years as a police officer, he attended numerous command schools where he was trained to handle this and other threatening situations.
“I’ve worked with Chief Secreet for 25 years and can’t recall a similar situation as the one on the bridge,” he said. “Chief Secreet was truly concerned about this woman and did everything he could to save her. It was a brave action on his part.”
For his actions on the Veterans Bridge, Frank Bruckner, president of the Scott Township Board of Commissioners, plans to issue a proclamation commending Secreet at one of their August meetings.
“This is just another example of Chief Secreet’s heroism,” Bruckner said. “I personally witnessed the compassion he has in several incidents. The chief has a humble demeanor but is able to relate to both the average citizen as well as professionals and people of prominence. He has a heroic element in his blood, and what he did (on the bridge) doesn’t surprise me.”
Secreet hopes the story will prompt other people with mental health issues to seek help.
“I would encourage that anyone that gets to the point that the subject was in, to talk to someone,” Secreet said. “There is always hope for a change in your life.