"Gerald"

So here's a story for you, and one of my proudest policing moments to date:

A few weeks ago I was sat in the parade room doing some paper work when a call came over the radio requesting any police officers to return to the police station to speak with a man in the enquiry office.

I'll be honest with you: most jobs that start in the enquiry office with a person reporting something to police are what we term "weary": problematic, frustrating, to be avoided.

With no takers to Comms for this job I looked at my partner who said that he had someone coming in for a statement and so couldn't do it - as I'm not yet a registered Police Driver this would limit things if it transpired that we needed to go somewhere as a result of this information.

I replied to Comms over the radio and said that I could speak with the man in the Enquiry Office but had no vehicle, initially I was told that would not be much help but whilst everyone else maintained radio silence I was soon asked to speak with the man.

I was met in the enquiry office by a flustered man who I ushered into a side room and said that I could take details from him (still not knowing what he had to say) but he set me straight,

"THERE'S A MAN IN THE RIVER, I CAN'T TELL YOU WHERE IT IS BUT I CAN SHOW YOU"

I went back to my Sergeant and told him what I knew and checked if it would be ok to travel in the informants car to the scene.

A few seconds later I was sat in the front seat of this man's car on the way to the river learning more as we travelled. This man had been walking his dog along the river and seen a man up to his waist in the water. As he approached him he said "Leave me alone, I want to die and swam off into the middle of the river".

I updated Comms over the radio and another unit said they would attend to back me up.

We arrived at the river followed shortly afterwards by my colleagues. The dog walker said that we had a fair distance from the car park to walk yet. My colleagues went along the opposite side of the river in case he was closer to that side.

After a ten minute trudge up the river I saw a man stood on the river bank dripping wet and was told that he was the man who had been in the river.

I approached the frail old man and spoke with him. He was very cold and was turning blue. He managed to tell me his name which for our purposes can be "GERALD" and that he wanted to kill himself but had failed.

The weather was quite warm and so I was in shirt sleeves with by stab proof vest on largely for the pockets it provides. I took my vest off as the only removable layer I had and put it round GERALD to keep him a bit warmer.

I knew that an ambulance was en route but would not be able to reach us where we were so began to walk GERALD back towards the car park.

Gerald was getting weaker as we walked due to the cold and wet clothes clinging to his body but I wasn't going to stop with him until we could get an ambulance to him.

It was whilst walking him back that I noticed blood on his fingers and neck. Gerald told me he'd failed, he'd gone to the river to kill himself, he'd stabbed himself hoping it would be quick but it hadn't worked so he'd tried to drown himself but couldn't keep his head under.

I could see one minor cut on his neck but it now turned out he'd stabbed himself in the chest - and I'd just covered it up with my vest. Thankfully he was so cold that all the blood in his body had contracted into his central organs so he wasn't likely to lose much from either of his wounds but all the same I was struggling to walk back with him as he became weaker and weaker and clung onto me as we walked.

He kept asking me to let him go and said that his life wasn't worth living. He said that he'd asked God to let him go. He was suffering from a skin disease which had knocked his self confidence and made his life with his family difficult.

I'm a Christian and whilst my colleagues know about my faith it's not come up as a problem or as something that (rightly or wrongly) makes me any different to them in doing my job. One Christian Police Officer wrote, "If I wanted to preach about it I'd be in the pulpit. I serve God by doing my job".

With Gerald telling me that he'd spoken to God I took the opportunity to tell him what God said in reply,

"GERALD, God loves you, he can help you, he can make you better."

I don't know if what I said went in or if how Gerald is now but I managed to carry him back as far as the road where he was treated by Paramedics and taken to hospital where his condition was stable and his injuries described as not life threatening.

This is what I put the uniform on for: to intervene in life when things start going wrong and do what I can to help.