My Life Saving Award

May 2004

Signal 32 Alpha

Suicide Attempt In Progress

In this line of work, there occasionally comes a time when you've got to hit the switches and fly to a call for service, lights and sirens. Sometimes reaching speeds that would put hairs on Tony Stewart's back, especially when you're taking sharp RIGHT turns. Slamming the breaks at red lights, looking left, then right, and praying to god there's no traffic coming through the other way that doesn't see your lights or hear the wails of your sirens. All you can think about, is getting to your destination, and what you're going to do when you arrive.

These types of calls happen, on average, once or twice a night in the wonderfully crazy state of Florida. This was one of those calls. Dispatch advised the caller's girlfriend (very recently his ex-girlfriend, actually) was sitting on his bed, holding a knife to herself saying she was going to kill herself if he didn't take her back.

We got there quick, my sergeant and I, and we ran into the residence without a moment's notice. The caller pointed to a room in the northwest area of the house. It was dark, but the silhouette of a stocky woman sitting on a bed was easily distinguishable. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, rocking back and forth, facing the wall. In her hands she gripped an eight inch steak knife, her knuckles turning white around the edges.

As she rocked back and forth on the bed, I could hear her whispering her intentions to herself. I'm not even sure she knew we were in the room yet. I had received some extensive training on crisis intervention in the past, and I tried to use what I had learned to talk to the woman, hoping I could talk her down from an intent to cause harm to herself, to end her life.

This wasn't the first time, for this woman, either. In the back of my senses I could hear her boyfriend explaining to deputies on scene she threatens suicide on the regular, but she's never gone to this extent before. He was scared, both for his safety, and for hers. They had recently broken up. The caller advised he couldn't take being with someone as mentally unstable as her, any longer. It was causing him to lose his nerve. They had broken up only days prior to this incident; she threatened him with suicide if he wouldn't take her back.

Fast forward to this moment, I was staring at a woman rocking back and forth, sitting upright in a bed, holding a knife pointed directly inward toward her midsection. She wouldn't respond to a single thing I said. She was so focused on the wall, on her feelings, on the space between her eyes where she could not escape.

The fear in this incident on the side of law enforcement is in the uncertainty of a knife, even when brought to a gun fight. Studies have shown, even an unskilled fighter with a knife can become deadly in the span of two seconds within twenty-one feet. Even a slower, heavier, person, could close that distance and land a deadly blow before officers could respond and draw their weapon. We were maybe five feet away.

I noticed, then, out of the corner of my eye, as my sergeant had worked his way behind the woman with the knife. For a moment we crossed eyes and a plan was set in motion. I waited for the opportunity; the moment when she would be at her weakest and at her safest. As she bobbed and rocked the knife came closer and further from her stomach. I tried to time it as perfectly as possible to gave the go ahead to my sarge. As she swung the furthest away from her body I heard the noise of a Taser deployment; the probes struck the woman's back and she wrenched backward into the bed. It was almost second nature as I leaped forward to take control of the woman and her knife. I had five seconds before her body would be released from the confines of the electric incapacitation.

As I looked down, I saw I was wearing my kevlar gloves; I must have put them on at some point on the way to the residence. I reached forward to grabbed the knife from the woman. My time had just run out and the woman's ride on the electric train was over. I felt her fight me for the knife, but she didn't have enough strength left in her to force the knife away from my grip. I removed the knife from her and placed it onto the table, then proceeded to handcuff the woman for her safety.

All's well that ends well, they say. Thankfully, she left that night with naught more than a Baker Act and some doctor's to keep her company. I was glad to see it end as well as it had. It could have gone much worse, much easier, and at a speed there was little that could have been done.

Thankfully, too, there was a trainee on scene... so he took the paper.