October 1998 Volume 79 Number 10 "serving the protectors"
Saving One Determined to Die
By Brett Williams

“I’m going to do it,” warned a highly agitated “jumper” perched on a first-floor balcony’s edge with electrical cord tied tightly around his neck. He bellowed his warning at Sergeant Jeff Oats, who had just arrived at the jumper’s Campbelltown flat on a June night last year.

Oats, 54, had heard many hollow threats of suicide during his 37-year police career. But from his vast experience, he knew that this was no simple case of attention-seeking.

The jumper, a middle-aged man of average build, stood outside his balcony railing to which the opposite end of his electrical cord was securely tied. By simply releasing his grip on the railing and stepping off the balcony, his neck would surely snap.

He told Oats not to bother “coming anywhere near me”. And neither sympathy nor reassuring words were ever going to dissuade him from plunging to his death at the end of his makeshift noose. He was determined to die.

“This bloke was absolutely serious,” Oats remembers. “It was one of the few times I’ve been really alarmed.”

Oats had responded to the suicide call as back-up to a colleague, Constable Andy Cowling, who’d been sent to investigate. The officers arrived simultaneously; and Cowling was equally convinced that, at any moment, the man would carry out his threat.

Still watching him from outside the flat with Cowling, Oats decided that he had to act - and act quickly. But how would he save one so desperately suicidal from himself? He had no time to ponder this question.

“The situation appeared that urgent,” Oats says, “that I had to get up there and make some move to try to grab him. You’ve got to ad-lib a bit hurriedly in that sort of situation.

“Andy stayed downstairs and distracted him (with conversation) and I went up the back stairs to the flat. His door was closed but unlocked.”

And whether the jumper had taken measures to prevent potential rescuers from reaching him was unknown to Oats. It was never out of the question for one so determined to kill himself to booby-trap likely rescue paths inside his flat.

Nonetheless, with no regard for his own safety, Oats opened the door and crept cautiously across the living room toward the balcony. Still maintaining his intensely precarious position on the balcony’s edge, the man remained unaware of the approaching police sergeant who would attempt to save his life.

As he inched closer to the balcony, Oats was mentally prepared to “spring”. “I just didn’t want to do anything to make him jump,” Oats says. “I quietly went and stood alongside the balcony, but he couldn’t see me at that stage.”

There being no time to consider any other options, Oats decided to reveal his presence, and had no way of knowing how the man would respond.

“It was just a thing I had to do straight away, on the run,” he says. “I thought: ‘How am I going to do this? Am I going to be strong enough to pull him up if he does jump all the way?’ ”

So, with his heart thumping, Oats moved slightly and revealed only his head from around the corner of the balcony’s opening. The two men were now face to face. Oats knew instantly that he was looking at a broken man: he could see the jumper’s desolation.

“I said: ‘Don’t be silly, tomorrow’s another day,’ ” Oats recalls. “But he said: ‘No, that’s it.’ ”

Then, Oats extended his hand, which he prayed the man would grasp - he didn’t.

“He just leant away and his feet went off the balcony,” Oats says. “I raced forward and thought: ‘Shit, this is going to have to be quick or it could be over, because the electrical cord is going to either cut through him straight away or break his neck.’

“I leaned right over the balcony, grabbed his arm with one hand and some of his clothing with the other and hauled him straight back over the balcony in one swoop. I suppose I was pretty wound up myself to be able to do that.”

Cowling would later say that Oats had rushed toward the man so quickly that he didn’t even see him move.

After hauling the man to safety, Oats removed the cord from his neck. He and Cowling spent the next 30 minutes consoling him. They learnt that he’d become severely depressed after separating from his wife.

“We looked around for implements that he could harm himself with later on and took him to the RAH (Royal Adelaide Hospital) for assessment,” Oats says. “He finished up at Glenside (Psychiatric Hospital). I felt very sorry for him; for a bloke to have to go to those lengths.”

But Oats had spared no thought for the danger in which he’d placed himself. He says that was an issue about which he had no time to think.

“I suppose it was always a possibility that I could have gone over with him, but I reckon I was strong enough to hold on, or at least hold him until Andy could race up and help me with him.”

Police Association president, Peter Alexander, says Oats went far above and beyond the call of duty. “It goes to show that we have the same commitment from people in their first year in the job right up to a 38-year veteran like Jeff,” he says.

“What he did is a great example to other members of the force. It’s important that we don’t fall for the trap of taking these things for granted.”

For his actions, Oats was awarded a Certificate of Merit by SAPOL (South Australia Police), which he was pleased to receive more for his family than himself. He says it was a good feeling to have “done some good” by saving a life.

But Oats had only been able to prolong the man’s life for a short time. He died a week later of natural causes.