Defense attorney Kurt Blake. (DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS - KATE PENN)
An apparently distraught woman tried to jump from the sixth floor inside the York County Judicial Center Thursday morning.
Deputy Dennis Williams and defense attorney Kurt Blake wrapped their arms around the woman and pulled her back over the railing.
"I walked out of courtroom 4, and I saw her climbing over the railing," Blake said. "I dropped my briefcase and dove at her."
Blake said the woman was standing on a narrow ledge, holding onto the railing, and was beginning to turn when they grabbed her. The center of the courthouse building features a seven-story open-air atrium.
The woman, described by witnesses as being in her mid-40s, was incoherent and "couldn't answer any questions,"
Deputy Dennis Williams (Submitted)
Blake said.
York County Sheriff Rich Keuerleber said the woman, who reportedly was the mother of a criminal defendant, was transported by ambulance to York Hospital after the suicide attempt. She was involuntary committed for a mental health evaluation.
"Denny had observed a woman on the sixth floor from his post outside courtroom 4," Keuerleber said.
Keuerleber said he was told the woman did not resist, but Blake said it felt like she was pushing away from them. Keuerleber commended both Williams and Blake for their actions.
Stopping a suicide attempt was new to Blake, but saving lives is not. Blake, 43, worked as a lifeguard at a swimming pool in Vernon, N.J., from 1984 through 1990.
"It had a wave pool, and we'd go into the water 30 to 40 times a day to pull people out," he said.
In 2008, Blake's law partner, Ronald Gross, received the Carnegie Medal for heroism for intervening when a gunman attacked a court stenographer on North Duke Street near the two attorneys' law firm in September 2003.
No one on the street full of people came to the screaming woman's aid. Gross, who was driving to work, stopped and got the woman into his car while the man pointed a handgun -- later determined to be pellet gun -- at Gross's head.
Deputies arrived on the scene and, when the man raised his pistol at them, one deputy fired two shots, killing him.
The shooting was ruled justifiable.
On the blogs
· Ron Gross among 16 York County Good Samaritans honored with Carnegie Medals since 1906.
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