BRUNSWICK, Maine — When Brunswick Police Sgt. Jonathan O’Connor stepped onto the Androscoggin Swinging Bridge the afternoon of Aug.19 and saw a woman struggling in the quick current below, he knew he had to act just as quickly.
He ran to the riverbank, took off his duty belt and jumped in after her, holding on to the struggling woman until other emergency personnel helped return her to the shore.
“She was going beneath the surface, and she was saying she couldn’t swim,” O’Connor told the Bangor Daily News at the scene. “[Officer] Terry [Goan] got the rope, and I dove in after her. She hit the current and was starting to float, so I grabbed ahold of her.”
“With no other options available, Sgt. O’Connor removed his duty belt and swam out approximately 15 feet in the dangerous current to assist the woman,” Brunswick Police Cmdr. Marc Hagan wrote in a letter nominating O’Connor for the Act of Bravery Award. O’Connor, who has been a member of the department since 2004, will be honored with that award Friday at the Maine Chiefs of Police Association annual meeting in South Portland.
Brunswick police had received a 911 transfer call from the Maine State Police reporting that a woman was threatening to jump off the Androscoggin Swinging Bridge. O’Connor and Goan raced from the police station just a few blocks up Mill Street to the bridge, which spans the Androscoggin River from Brunswick to Topsham — not far upstream from where the river flows over a dam owned by Florida Power & Light.
“It is nice to be recognized by my administration, as well as the Maine chiefs,” O’Connor wrote in an email to the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday. “It was a good team effort (communications, responding officers, fire department) that brought a positive outcome to what could have been a bad situation.”
“Jon’s actions were heroic,” Hagan said Thursday. “He risked his own life to save another’s. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
If you are concerned about yourself or about somebody else, call the suicide crisis hotline at 1-888-568-1112. If you are not in Maine, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).