Body camera footage shows the harrowing moment when a Virginia sheriff’s deputy saved a suicidal man sitting on the ledge of a highway overpass.
On Tuesday, York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Deputy James Robinson responded to several 911 calls from drivers reporting a man sitting over U.S. Route 60 in Yorktown, Virginia.
When Robinson arrived on the scene, the man appeared to be looking down at the highway below as he sat with his legs dangling dangerously beneath him, the deputy’s body camera video showed.
Robinson asked some bystanders if they knew the man before carefully approaching him. The deputy then attempted to engage the man.
“What’s going on, man?” Robinson asked. “…Can I talk to you for a moment? You wanna tell me what’s up?”
Robinson then asked the man to do him a “favor” and come back on the other side of the ledge to talk.
“I won’t touch you. I won’t come near you. I won’t do anything,” Robinson promised. “I just want you to talk to me for a moment so I can figure out what’s going on.”
The man did not respond to Robinson, despite the deputy’s several attempts to make eye contact and conversation, Shelley Ward, public information officer for the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office, told ABC News.
At this point, Robinson “knew his time was really limited and that he had to do something” because the man wouldn’t engage, Ward said. The man made eye contact with him once, but then turned away, she added.
When the man put his cellphone down, Robinson made the “split-second decision” to distract the man by pretending that he would help someone else on the road so he could get closer to him, Ward said.
“Let me get this guy going right quick, and I’m [gonna] see what’s going on, alright?” Robinson is heard saying to no one in particular in his body camera footage.
Robinson then grabbed the man’s left shoulder from behind, causing him to fall backward into safety.
“I got him off,” Robinson said into his radio before turning his attention to the man, who began sobbing.
After Robinson asks the man if he has any weapons on him and pats him down, he asked him, “What’s wrong?”
“I have nothing left,” the man said between sobs.
“You do. You have plenty left,” Robinson responded in earnest. “…You got a lot left. You got a lot in you.”
After the video ended, Robinson and the man continued to talk, Ward said, declining to reveal the details of the conversation and why the man was upset.
First responders then transported the man to a local hospital to be evaluated, Ward said.
Although the incident scared Robinson, he was “very grateful that he could help the individual,” Ward said, adding that Robinson’s compassion for the man was evident in his voice.
Robinson has not had contact with the man since but “wants him to know that he doesn’t have nothing to live for” and that “there’s somebody out there who would be glad to listen to him,” Ward said.
“Deputy Robinson showed the utmost compassion for the man and reassured him that he still has a lot to live for,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to this man and his family.”
Authorities did not reveal the man’s identity. His condition is unclear.
ABC News’ Amanda Maile contributed to this report.
