NC officer blared horn, but woman kept walking into traffic. ‘I had to do something.’
1st Sgt. Steve Grinnell kept sounding his air horn, but the distraught woman kept walking into traffic on a busy four-lane road.
“I knew I had to do something,” said Grinnell, with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, before he thwarted what he learned was a suicide attempt.
“She wouldn’t look up,” Grinnell said. “She kept her head down and kept walking.”
Grinnell was dispatched to check on the woman after a 911 caller reported her walking down an exit ramp to the edge of busy southbound U.S. 321 on Monday afternoon.
When the sergeant arrived, he saw the woman walking northbound in the southbound lane just off the travel lane. She then walked straight from the shoulder into the travel lane, he said.
The woman ignored him when he activated his blue lights about 500 feet ahead of her and sounded his horn, he said.
He momentarily tried to block traffic with his patrol car, but the oncoming cars were approaching too fast, he said.
So he pulled onto the shoulder to the right of the woman, jumped from his car, grabbed her by her jacket and pulled her to safety just as an oncoming car was about to hit them.
“I just got out and grabbed her,” Grinnell told the Observer.
“‘Please, please, just let me do it,’” Grinnell said the woman told him.
He drove the woman, in her 50s, to a church parking lot and stayed with her until Lincoln County EMS arrived her and took her to Atrium Health–Lincoln for evaluation.
“I just hope she gets the mental health care she needs” and realizes “there’s a lot to look forward to” in life, Grinnell said. “I hope she can see the positive.”
Who to call in a crisis
▪ National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: If you need help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has a 24-hour crisis hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Confidential online chat is also available at SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
▪ Spanish hotline: If you’re undergoing a crisis and need help from a Spanish-speaking suicide hotline, you can call 1-888-628-9454.
▪ Ayuda en español: Si está pasando por una crisis y necesita ayuda, puede llamar a la Red Nacional de Prevención del Suicidio al 1-888-628-9454.
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "NC officer blared horn, but woman kept walking into traffic. ‘I had to do something.’."