POCATELLO — If not for the cat-like reflexes of three Pocatello police officers one brisk October evening last year, one local woman may have died in front of her three children.
It was because of their efforts the three officers were the recent recipients of the Pocatello Police Lifesaving Award during the agency’s annual ceremony last month.
It was approximately 10:30 p.m. Oct. 6, 2018, when patrolman Jeff Eldridge, a veteran police officer with more than two decades spent in uniform — seven years with the Pocatello Police Department — received the report of a woman in a mental health crisis who was sitting atop the curved, protective chain-link fence that runs along the Monte Vista Drive overpass barrier.
She was threatening to jump onto Interstate 15 below.
“I was a city rover that night and saw a call come across about a suicidal person on the fence at the Monte Vista overpass,” Eldridge said. “We get calls like that sometimes, but rarely does it involve a person on the other side of the barrier. It’s difficult to get on top of that fence there. You have to be fairly committed to get on top of it.”
As officer Eldridge drove toward the overpass, patrolman Tyler Anderson, who has been with the department for two years, drove along Interstate 15 under the overpass to confirm the accuracy of the report involving the woman. Both Anderson and Eldridge arrived to the woman’s location on the bridge at about the same time, Anderson said.
Upon arriving, the officers observed a female passerby communicating with the woman near the fence. To this day, the officers have never identified the woman but said her efforts to console the woman before they arrived played a significant role in the how the events transpired.
“We got up there pretty quick, and as soon we got there the woman passerby apparently left the area because we never saw her again,” Anderson said. “Nobody ever had a chance to talk to that woman and thank her, but what she did that night definitely helped.”
While Anderson and Eldridge approached the woman, Sgt. Val Wadsworth radioed his colleagues to block both ends of the overpass to traffic, and Eldridge called for dispatchers to send emergency medical personnel, in case of injuries. Eldridge also started positioning other responding units to block the interstate below the woman.
When Anderson made contact with the woman, he reached his hand through the fence and held her hand as he asked her questions. Meanwhile, the woman’s husband, carrying an infant in his arms and towing two children close behind, ran toward the officers and their loved one.
The husband was reportedly shouting to his wife not to jump and to come down from the fence, prompting Eldridge to calm him down to avoid further agitating her.
While Eldridge spoke to the husband, one of the elder children, a boy around the age of 10, climbed up onto the fencing and grabbed his mother by her other free hand, Anderson said.
“The boy climbed the fence and started talking to her, saying things like, ‘Mom, we love you,’ or ‘We need you, Mom,’” Anderson said. “It seemed like forever, but it was probably only lasted about 10 minutes.”
As Anderson and the boy pleaded with the woman to return to safety, she told her son that he’d be better off with her dad, Anderson added.
”That’s when she leaned over the edge,” he said.
Eldridge added, “She made this leaning motion as if she were going to jump off the fence. I jumped up, grabbed the fence and pulled myself up just enough to grab the hood of her sweatshirt and pull her back. Anderson was able to let go of her hand and do the same to grab a hold of her arm.”
With two firm grips on the woman, the officers leaned backward, anticipating a fall of six feet onto the asphalt of the bridge below.
That’s when Sgt. Wadsworth ran underneath the trio and propped Anderson and Eldridge back up onto the fence.
“I basically held them up to the fence by the seats of their pants,” said Wadsworth, adding, “I just remember thinking we cannot let this woman die in front of her kids. There was no way we were going to let that happen.”
Anderson added, “I thought it was going to be a hard fall coming off that fence so I was relieved when I felt the sarge underneath us.”
After reaching the ground safely, the woman was surrounded by her children. After a few moments, Eldridge escorted the woman to his patrol car and eventually transported her to Portneuf Medical Center for a mental health evaluation.
“We checked back in on her a few weeks later and she was still at the hospital, but I’m fairly sure she has moved out of the area since then,” Anderson said about the woman.
Wadsworth, who has been a Pocatello Police Officer for two decades, said he has handled situations like this incident, but has never encountered such a scenario involving children.
“With the kids on the fence and the way that everything that was taking place at the time, it was a very intense situation,” Wadsworth said. “Fortunately, when we get the opportunity to intervene, we are successful. Very seldom does something bad happen if we are there to get in and stop the situation.”
Wadsworth said he is appreciative of the peer recognition in receiving the lifesaving award; however, he did nothing out of the ordinary. In his opinion, he was just doing his job. Eldridge echoed Wadsworth’s sentiments.
“This woman was very committed to what she was doing,” Eldridge said. “We just did what we had to do to save her. We may have to do the same thing again in the future. That’s just part of the job.”