Hao Nguyen

Hao Nguyen saved a man from jumping off a building, St. Paul, Minnesota, February 13, 2023. Contemplating suicide, the man stood on a snowbank piled next to a safety wall on the roof of a parking garage and peered over the side to the street 70 feet below. A witness in an adjacent office building saw him and alerted Nguyen, 40, state prosecutor. Nguyen ran across the street to the parking garage and took the elevator to the garage roof. He approached the man and tried to establish a rapport with him, then pulled him away from the edge of the roof. Nguyen tried to engage in a dialogue with the man in both Vietnamese and English to calm him and get him to leave the roof with him. But the man grew increasingly agitated and ran to jump. Nguyen intercepted the man and grappled with him. The man pressed Nguyen against the wall during the struggle to the point where Nguyen felt he was about to topple over the edge. Nguyen then pushed off the wall for leverage and forced the man back. The two separated momentarily. Nguyen grabbed the man in a bear hug from behind and wrapped his legs around his waist, taking him to the ground. He eventually pinned him with a jujitsu hold until a sheriff’s deputy arrived. Nguyen suffered slight abrasions to his face from elbow strikes that the man had delivered during the struggle, but was otherwise uninjured.