Updated at 10:30 p.m. June 29, 2015
Several sheriff’s deputies helped save the life of a suicidal inmate who was trying to jump from an upper tier of cells at the downtown Los Angeles Twin Towers Correctional Facility, authorities said Monday.
Deputy Clarissa Torres was walking on the upper tier of the facility’s Module 162, which houses 182 mentally ill inmates, last Monday when an inmate and his cellmate told her they wanted to participate in group therapy, the sheriff’s department reported.
Torres opened their cell door and directed them to walk down to the dayroom, where deputies were standing by to secure the inmates to tables.
As the inmate neared the stairs, he climbed head first over the railing, and begun to lunge forward, attempting to jump off the upper tier.
Torres reached out and grabbed the inmate with only one hand holding the inmate’s wrist as he let go of the railing. The inmate weighed more than 150 pounds. Two other deputies quickly responded to assist Torres holding the inmate’s arms.
Deputies at the bottom, holding his feet, preventing him from falling. As a team they were able to lower the inmate to the floor and place him on his feet.
The inmate was not injured.
Torres, a mother of three, “clearly demonstrated her instinctive nature. Had she not immediately intervened, the inmate could have sustained great bodily injury or possible death,” the sheriff’s department reported.
—City News Service