A FedEx delivery driver is being hailed as a hero for the actions that he took to save the life of a suicidal woman last week.
According to local news station WBIR, the incident happened on Tuesday, September 25 in Rogersville, Tennessee.
The Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to the Caney Creek Bridge around 6:15 p.m. that evening. Corporeal Mark Harrell says that when he arrived on the scene, he saw two men leaning over the side of the bridge, holding a 54 year old woman above the 40 foot drop into the water below.
The two men, one of whom was later identified as 42 year old FedEx delivery driver Garrett Nicholson, were able to pull the woman back up onto the bridge with help from Harrell. The men reportedly held on to the woman for several minutes before help arrived.
Police say that the woman had a belt around her neck and that she expressed suicidal thoughts. She was taken to a hospital for medical attention.
Nicholson later said that he had just delivered a package when he noticed a man and a woman on the bridge. When he stopped to ask if everything was ok, the man said that he believed that the woman might jump. Nicholson says that he then got out of his truck and grabbed hold of the woman as she lunged off the bridge.
Nicholson described the incident: “She seemed pretty out of it. She kind of lurched forward (to jump), and I was able to grab her by the arm and pretty much held her like that for like five minutes … She just went dead weight and was dangling off the side of the bridge. It seemed like it was hours, but it was maybe five minutes.”
Nicholson told the Kingsport Times News that his job as a delivery driver helped him in rescuing the woman: “I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to hold her. Fortunately, where I work at FedEx, I load boxes all day, and you kind of get used to holding on to heavy things. I was just really scared that she was going to fall, and it was kind of one of those things that you just keep praying to God for strength to keep holding her until someone arrived to help me.”