What do the two have in common?
This is a first for me.
Driving over the Coronado Bridge today on my way to do an appraisal (which happened to be rescheduled from 9am to a later time of 11am), traffic was nearly at a standstill. Rounding a car parked on the side I saw a lady swigging from a wine bottle while looking over the side. I was shocked nobody else was stopped. Well, I pulled in front of her car and started talking with her. After telling me her car broke down and that she was just waiting for a tow truck, I stayed within arm reach of her and tried to talk to her. After about 5 minutes of getting nowhere and no police yet she was getting irritated with me asking her questions and kept telling me to leave.
I told her ok, got in my car and called 911 to ask what I should do at this point. I was fearing I might anger her more and that she would try to jump. The operator was advising me she doesn’t want me to endanger myself and at that time I could hear the ‘whoop whoop’ of highway patrol trying to get through. I was out of my car walking toward her again quickly since I could see she was panicking, looking around, looking over the side, etc. She walked towards her car, was going to get in then shut the door. Once she saw the highway patrol squeezing through she made a bolt for the side. I ran towards her, grabbed her and held her tight. She hit me on the head a few times with her bottles, the big bottle fell and broke, and I pulled her to the ground.
The next thing I knew 2 police were on top of us as she continued to resist and she finally gave in. Whew, what a day!
I am very thankful that my appraisal was rescheduled that day and even more grateful that she has another chance in life.
As appraisers we see people in all types of horrible situations, going through everything from bankruptcy, death and divorce. Being an appraiser we have often thought how horrible our lives are, lol. But I know that as appraisers we are generally a caring group of individuals that will step up when they are needed to make the right decision.
Bryan
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/13/man-prevents-suicide-on-coronado-bridge/
