Randall S. Paulson, Jr., helped to save a woman from falling, Pleasanton, California, March 16, 2005. In an apparent suicide attempt, a 26-year-old woman sat on the outside edge of an interstate highway overpass, at a point about 28 feet above the highway surface. Police were called to the scene, including Paulson, 36, who responded from the figuring municipality and took command of the situation. As he talked to the woman, she suddenly fell from her position but grasped the top of a large sign that was affixed to the side of the overpass, and she dangled over the highway. A deputy sheriff who had responded from another municipality immediately climbed a chain-link fence along the edge of the overpass and lowered himself to a position atop the sign. Holding to the fence with one hand, he grasped the woman by the hand with his other, but he could not pull her up. Paulson then scaled the fence and lowered himself to a position atop the sign. He and the other officer pulled the woman up to the top of the sign, then helped her scale the fence to where officers on the deck of the overpass assumed control of her. Paulson and the other officer then climbed the fence to the safety of the overpass deck. The woman required hospital treatment.
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