The San Gabriel Valley Tribune
PICO RIVERA, Calif. — Five deputies are credited with resuscitating a man they found hanging lifeless at the Rio Hondo bridge this weekend.
“These deputies collectively gave this guy a fighting second chance,” Lt. John Kepley of the sheriff’s Pico Rivera station said on Monday.
He said the 28-year-old Montebello man remains in critical condition at Beverly Hospital in Montebello.
Deputies Venus Felix, Rosa Perez, Ricardo Vega, Evelia Manriquez and Gregory Emerson headed to the Rio Hondo Bridge in the 100 block of East Whittier Boulevard in Montebello at 7:27 p.m. Sunday regarding a call about an attempted suicide.
They saw a man hanging on the north side of the bridge and pulled him up and over the guard rail.
“He had no pulse, he wasn’t breathing,” Kepley said.
As two deputies tried to remove the makeshift noose of electrical cord from the man, a third deputy began CPR. They couldn’t untie the noose so they used a utility knife to cut the cord which cleared the man’s airway.
After three minutes, they saw signs of life.
“He had a slight pulse and began to breathe,” Kepley said.
Firefighters took the man to Beverly Hospital.
Kepley didn’t know why the man decided to hang himself. He said Montebello police are investigating the incident.
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