A 45-year-old mom distraught over her impending divorce was about to end it all by leaping off the Kosciuszko Bridge on Monday, but two caring cops persuaded her to give life another chance.
A cop from the NYPD’s Domestic Violence Unit and an Emergency Services Unit detective spent nearly two hours talking to the woman as she clung to a cable stretched across the side of the 75-year-old bridge, officials said.
Her feet teetered on an electrical conduit pipe half her shoe size, cops said.
The officers finally managed to talk her into climbing to safety “so she could be with her daughter,” a police source said
“She was having marriage problems,” the source said. “One of the ways (the cops) connected with her was to talk to her about her daughter.”
Bundled in a black down coat, the Brooklyn woman climbed over the side of the bridge at about 11:30 a.m. and seemed prepared to make the 125-foot drop to the Newtown Creek as police arrived on the scene, officials said.
Two lanes on the bridge’s Brooklyn-bound side were closed as cops began a dialogue with the woman. Once she agreed to be rescued, police guided her to the spot where she was able to climb down, and pulled her up.
The woman was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center for a psychological evaluation.
The span linking Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to Maspeth, Queens was opened in 1939.
The state has set aside $555 million to have the entire bridge replaced.