Police save two men from suicide in Vitoria and Madrid

A MAN climbed to the seventh floor of a building in Vitoria on some scaffolding and threatened to jump if he wasn’t allowed to see his children.

The events took place at around 4pm on Saturday, March 13, in Calle Ramon Ortiz de Zarate, according to the Basque Security Department.

The Basque police, the Ertzaintza, the Municipal Police and the fire department travelled to the scene.

The street had to be closed to traffic, and from 5pm, the police were on the sixth floor of the building talking to the man, who shouted for his wife and children.

At around 8pm, the police decided that it was unlikely that the man would agree to come down and while measures were put in place to keep him safe in case he fell, the intervention team went into action. At around 9.10pm, he was overpowered by the police who came in from the roof.

The Vitoria-Gasteiz firemen had put harnesses on the officers and they were attached to the stairs of the building. It was tricky to avoid the man from falling, and special mattresses had been put in place below by the fire department.

Dozens of people watched the whole scene, which lasted five hours and had started due to a family matter.

Meanwhile, National Police in Madrid also prevented a man from committing suicide.

In this case, the person they saved was a 90-year-old man who was holding a large knife to his necking and shouting that he didn’t want to live anymore.

The events took place at around 8pm on Saturday, March 13, when the man’s shouting and agitated manner alerted passers-by in Avenida de Palomeras Bajas who called the police.

Two police officers from the Puente de Vallecas area arrived within three minutes and found the man causing injuries to his hands, on one of which, even the bone could be seen. He had also started injuring his neck and was losing a lot of blood.

The police began talking to him and managed to approach him quickly and take the knife off him. They covered his wounds and he was taken to the Infanta Leonor University Hospital. Staff at the hospital said it was the rapid action of the officers that had saved the man’s life.

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