Guy Dawkins' rescue of a young suicidal woman shortly before Christmas last year has resulted in the Sechelt man receiving a commendation from the Vancouver Police Department (VPD).
Dawkins, who was in Vancouver on business, was stopped on Clark Drive when he happened to notice the woman overhead. According to VPD Const. Anne Longley, the distraught young woman was on an overpass, which spans both Skytrain and commercial train tracks approximately 50 metres over the street.
Next Dawkins said he saw the woman start to put her belongings on the sidewalk.
"She folded her coat neatly and climbed over the railing and was looking for a place to jump," he said. "I turned a U-ie and put on my emergency flashers and ran up. It's five days before Christmas and someone's going to jump a bridge," he remembered with tears in his eyes.
Dawkins proceeded to lock arms with the woman so she was unable to move. He spoke to her of all the sorrow her act would cause for her family and friends.
"I was interlocked with her for 10 minutes before I dragged her over the damn thing [railing]," he recalled.
Finally he had calmed her down enough to where she was no longer going to jump. Just as the woman started to walk away from him, several police officers appeared on the scene. After the police arrived, Dawkins asked for permission to hug the woman and to reassure her that the police had her best interests at heart. When he spoke to the woman for the last time, he said, she was amazed at the number of strangers who actually cared about her.
According to an email from Longley, "numerous other witnesses called police to report the distraught female, but Mr. Dawkins was the only one to actually stop and offer assistance. He was selfless in his actions and very possibly saved the life of the young woman."
Chief Const. Jim Chu of the VPD echoed those words in his citation to Dawkins that praised the local man's "outstanding sense of civic responsibility."
For the modest Dawkins, there was nothing else he could have done.
"You hope anybody would do that for anybody," he exclaimed.
