LITTLE ROCK — Samuel Jones’ reaction when he saw a man climb over the railing of the East 21st Street bridge over Interstate 30 in Little Rock on Thursday morning helped save the life of a U.S. Air Force airman, police said.
Jones, who said he rarely drives the route that took him over the bridge, immediately made a U-turn, stopped and jumped out of his sport utility vehicle when he saw 20-year-old Andrew J. Urreta standing on the north ledge of the bridge, about 15 feet over the busy interstate. Then he started talking to the airman.
“He put both his feet on the other side of the rail, and I told him it just ain’t worth that,” Jones said in an interview Thursday afternoon. He said Urreta was crying, and his feet were bare. His car was parked on the curb “like he had just ran it on there.” Police said Urreta, who is stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, was threatening to jump because he said “he had ruined his life” by going absent without leave.
What occurred over the next few minutes have police crediting Jones, 50, who owns Jones Hauling in Conway, and another passer-by, Reginald Rogers, 41, of Little Rock, with saving Urreta.
At 9:51 a.m. on the bridge, Jones called 911 while he and Rogers tried to talk Urreta down, police records show.
“I told him if you need money, I’ve got money. Maybe we could go get a drink or something,” Jones said.
As they talked, Jones slowly approached. “And I got over close enough to him right as the police was hitting the corner, and I snatched him up over that rail,” he said. Jones grabbed Urreta around the waist and fell backward to keep the two from tumbling over.
Jones and Rogers held Urreta down until Little Rock police officer Larry Ringgold and two other officers arrived at 9:53 a.m., police dispatch records show.
Urreta was “extremely emotional,” Ringgold wrote in an incident report. After he calmed down, he told police that he was absent without leave from the U.S. Air Force and “was planning to jump due to his feeling he had ruined his life,” the report said.
Urreta was taken to UAMS Medical Center for a mental-health evaluation. He is a loadmaster with the 53rd Airlift Squadron, 19th Airlift Wing of Little Rock Air Force Base. According to Air Force records, he hadn’t deployed.
Base spokesman Bob Oldham said Urreta had been missing from duty for two days. He had not been charged or classified as absent without leave, but base officials were filing the paperwork to do so, according to reports.
“Other than the two days missing, he was in good standing,” Oldham said. By Thursday afternoon, Urreta had been released to Air Force authorities and was “under the supervision of squadron commanders,” Oldham said.
Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said the officers were impressed with the two men’s reaction.
“It’s not often that you see someone get involved and try to save someone’s life,” Davis said. “[The officers] thought very highly of it.”
A message left Thursday afternoon on a number Rogers provided to police wasn’t immediately returned.
Jones said he left the scene still contemplating what he’d done. “I thought about it and thought what could have happened. [He] could have brought both of us down,” he said. But, Jones said, he’s more bothered by the thought that Urreta could have slipped from his grasp.
“When I left there and I got down there close to where I was going, I broke down in tears because what if I didn’t get him,” Jones said, pausing as his voice broke. “If I would have missed him, he could have been down on that street down there.” Information for this article was contributed by Amy Schlesing of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/25/2010