It is with great admiration Colonel Stephen McCartney recognizes the life-saving actions performed by members of the Warwick Police and Fire Departments last evening, described as follows:

On May 17, 2015 at 8:00 pm several officers were dispatched to the Greenwich Avenue/Route 95 overpass where a 23 year old woman was intent on jumping into traffic below. Officer James Michailides, a member of the Department’s Mental Health Crisis Response Team, was first on-scene and immediately engaged the woman in effective dialogue as additional units arrived. Officer Michailides convinced the woman to allow him to approach close enough and to hold her hand through the barrier link fence. As the woman began to fade out of consciousness, Officer Michailides clamped on to her other hand as her feet gave way. Sergeant Thomas Snow along with Officers Christopher Lo and Stephen Major, quickly grasped articles of the woman’s clothing through the link fence as she attempted to push off onto the highway below. These officers managed to maintain their collective grip of the woman until Warwick Firefighters David Andrews, Private Kyle Connelly, and Private Joseph Levesque reached her with apparatus and brought her to safety below.

The immediate intervention and life-saving actions performed during this extremely intense crisis undoubtedly prevented this woman from almost certain death.