Dramatic video shows police in Seattle talking a man off a ledge over the city's train tracks — then rescuing him from an oncoming train.
The 57-year-old man, who has not been identified, was "experiencing (a) mental health crisis" and sitting on a ledge high above train tracks near Seattle's 2nd Avenue Exit and East Jackson Street at around 9:15 p.m. on Oct. 7, the Seattle Police Department said on social media. Dispatchers requested that inbound trains to the site be stopped as patrol officers responded to the scene.
"I want to help you, and I need you to hear me when I say that," a patrol officer can be heard telling the man in bodycam video shared by the department.
Video shows the man then slipped from the platform, falling about 25 feet to land in rocks beside the train tracks — into the path of a freight train that had already been en route when the dispatcher request came through. The man "suffered serious injuries and was unable to move," police said.
Multiple police officers on the lower platform ran across the tracks to rescue the man. One officer reached his side just before the train raced through, pulling him away from the tracks with just seconds to spare.
The man sustained multiple fractures, the department said. He was treated by the Seattle Fire Department and transported to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition.