Officer Joseph E. Yeater, who caught a woman in midair as she vaulted off a high-rise balcony in Towson, said yesterday it was like making the big catch in an important football game.
"I looked for that hole that coaches tell you about," Officer Yeater said at the Towson Precinct, a day after the dramatic rescue on the 21st floor of the Towson Towers condominium. "You know, look for the best and fastest way to get through to make the catch. I got through that door and ran past the furniture with one thing in mind: head for the balcony."
Thanks to his quick thinking and quick reflexes, the 29-year-old officer who never has played football was able to help save a 39-year-old woman from certain death early Wednesday as she jumped over the railing.
He reached out and grabbed her by the back of the neck and her sweater and held on as she dangled high above a driveway on the east side of the Allegheny Avenue building.
Two other officers arrived then and all three pulled her back over the railing.
The three officers were being called heroes yesterday but Officer Yeater seemed reluctant to accept the role.
"We did what anybody else on our shift would do or what anybody else in the department would do," he said. "It's part of our job."
The other two officers were not available.
The incident began around 4:45 a.m. Wednesday when Officer Eric Keen of the Cockeysville Precinct went to a Cockeysville home to investigate a domestic dispute.
Officer Keen was in the home when a woman called there and told her husband she was going to commit suicide by jumping off the balcony of their Towson apartment.
Police did not release the identity of the couple.
Officer Keen immediately notified the Towson Precinct. Officers Yeater and Victor Epps arrived at the 27-story building around 5 a.m.
After they knocked on the door several times, the woman finally yelled for the officers to "Go away or I'm going to jump," Officer Yeater said.
Refusing to open the door and piling up furniture against the door, the woman would not listen as officers tried to talk to her, he said.
Officer Keen arrived moments later with a key provided by the husband and the three shoved open the door against the weight of two large upholstered chairs and a coffee table.
Officer Yeater said he saw that the glass door 20 feet away was open, but a sliding screen door still was closed.
The woman ran across the room through the screen door, knocking the door off its hinges. He was a few feet behind.
Once on the balcony, the woman placed both hands on the rail and swung her legs over the balcony, Officer Yeater said.
"She was facing me when she jumped," Officer Yeater said. "I don't even remember what her expression was like. I thought 'This isn't real, it's not really happening.' And then I just remember thinking 'Oh my God! I've got to grab her.' "
He caught her as her body swung against the side of the building.
Although the woman was fairly small, he said, her weight and the momentum of the jump yanked the sweater from his fingers.
"I knew I had to hang on to her," said Officer Yeater, who then put his free hand around her neck holding her 21 floors above the ground.
"I was really afraid I was going to drop her. She was holding onto the railing and trying to push away from me. I couldn't have saved her alone," he said.
Officer Epps got there then and leaned out over the balcony to grab the woman's legs and quickly was joined by Officer Keen.
The three pulled the woman back onto the balcony.
"All we could say to her at the time was, 'Do you realize what you did?' " Officer Yeater said. "She didn't have any answers. We were all really upset, but at the time, you don't really think of the danger."
In the apartment, the woman was handcuffed to protect her and taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, police said.
She was uninjured, except for some minor scrapes to her hands, police said.
"Twenty-one floors is an awful long way," said Capt. Roger L. Sheets, Towson Precinct commander.
"When you look down from there you get an appreciation of how far this lady would have fallen and how far the officers would have fallen too if she had pulled them with her. This was a real opportunity for them to shine, and they did," he said.