MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Body-worn camera footage shows several angles of the tense moments when Miami-Dade County police officers rescued a man who was threatening to drop from a highway overpass.
It happened Saturday along Bird Road, right over the busy Palmetto Expressway.
A missing person call led Miami-Dade officers to find a 19-year-old man dangling from an overpass, with traffic buzzing by below.
Officers say this is the type of event they prepare for specifically with their crisis intervention training. One quickly lunged toward the man and was able to grab onto him. It took several officers to pull him up to safety.
Sgt. Cheryl Diaz says they were trying to talk the man down, but the closer they got, the more he backed away, until he was barely hanging onto the edge.
For her, situations like these feel personal.
“Unfortunately, suicide is something that does plague society, and it has actually touched me very personally,” she said. “Somebody very close to me, unfortunately, killed themself.”
Diaz says this is the type of situation that officers sign up for, and this time they were fortunate. The man was taken to the hospital for treatment.
“All of us converged on the area with the same hope — the desire to save his life.”