HILLSBORO, Ore. – Deputies in an Oregon county were in the right place at the right time this week, saving two lives in the same spot on two different days.
Shortly after 11 p.m. on Monday, Washington County deputies received a call that a 16-year-old girl was at the top of a parking structure across the street from the Sheriff’s Office in HIllsboro, KATU-TV reported.
Deputies were able to coax the girl, who was allegedly preparing to jump, away from the outside railing, the television station reported.
“There’s a lot of grief associated with the loss of normalcy with what youth are doing right now and the connections to their peers,” Emily Moser, director of the non-profit YouthLine, told KGW.
Moser’s job has taught her a lot about how teens are trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t make much sense right now. “The uncertainty that they’re feeling is very much in the here and now,” she said.
On Tuesday, deputies responded to the same area, as a woman in her 30s was standing on the top of the parking structure, KGW reported.
“I received a phone call from a coworker who was driving home and she told me there was a subject on the top level of a local structure that was outside the barrier,” Commander Caprice Massey told the television station.
When Massey arrived, she tried to engage with the woman by talking to her.
“She starting signing in American Sign Language and she preferred to communicate that way, and as luck has it, I know sign language,” Massey told KGW.
Massey was able to talk the woman back over the barrier without saying a word.
“I asked the young lady if she would sit with me and we sat pretty close to each other,” Massey told KGW. “Just take the time to check in with people and when you ask ‘How are you?’ wait for the answer.”
