By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — A quick-thinking Good Samaritan coaxed a suicidal man off the ledge of a Washington Heights bridge Friday.
Isidor "Izzy" Suarez, 60, a Department of Transportation employee, noticed a young man perched on the Washington Bridge that connects upper Manhattan and the Bronx, he told DNAinfo.
Suarez saw the man climbing toward the edge of the bridge about 11 a.m., so "I ran over there and started talking to him," he said.
Speaking to the man in Spanish, Suarez learned that the would-be jumper was unemployed, had money problems and had just been kicked out of his house.
"I told him that's not a reason to jump, there's organizations out there that can help," Suarez said.
He then asked the man if he was Christian, and when he replied yes, Suarez told him that suicide is considered the same as murder in that religion.
"His eyes opened, and he started walking back," Suarez said.
Police then arrived and took the unidentified man to a local hospital, he added.
Suarez, a family man who lives and Queens and has worked for the DOT for 25 years, was not even scheduled to work in Manhattan Friday but got the call to fill in for another employee who had to leave early.
"God must have chosen me to go there today," he said. "It's a good feeling."
