Page 50 - August 2017

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Just in time
19th District of cers save girl from bridge jump
n BY NICK SWEDBERG
Officers Joel Roman and Juan Luera thought the call they received around 2 a.m. on July 20 was unusual.
It had been a slow morning, and the call happened at a time when they usually would be dealing with intox- icated subjects. But instead, they received a well-being check call for a girl by the Chicago River near Belmont Avenue.
“A girl by a bridge? That just didn’t sound right,” Ro- man recalls thinking as he and Luera sped to the area.
Moments later, they reached the scene. Roman, an 11- year veteran who was driving that night, spotted the girl first. She had one arm over the railing, and her right leg was between two slats in the railing. Roman slowed and tried not to startle her as they approached.
“When I stopped, she saw us and she tried going over,” says Roman. “She forgot that her right leg was still jammed in the railing.”
That half-second was enough to slow the 15-year-old. Roman sped up as the girl freed her leg and began to throw herself over the railing. Luera, who also has been with the department for 11 years, bolted from the pas- senger seat.
“She just gave me that look,” Luera recalls. “Like, ‘I’m going for it.’”
Before Roman could throw the car into park, Luera had jumped out of it, raced to the railing and wrapped up the teen in a bear hug. She didn’t say a single word, Luera says, until both he and Roman had her on the ground, where she just repeated the word “no.”
Both officers managed to get her into the back seat of their squad and called for EMS. Eventually, the teen gave the officer the contact information for her family members, who were called to the scene. The officers also spoke to the witness who called 911 — a mother who was with her own daughter and had noticed the teen standing near the railing. Roman says the witness was the “real hero” that night for stopping to try and help the teen when others kept driving.
50 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ AUGUST 2017
The girl suffers from depression and other issues, says her father. He had been out driving around the city look- ing for her. Roman and Luera, who are both fathers to young girls, say the rescue haunted them long after they reunited the teen with her parents.
“I played it over and over for a couple of days, I’m not gonna lie,” Roman says.
Both Roman and Luera say that morning could have gone completely differently if the teen had not paused to free her leg.
“It was just by the grace of God that everything played out to a ‘T,’” Luera said. d