{"id":22412,"date":"2026-04-29T13:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=22412"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:26:27","slug":"just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Just pray.&#8217; MTA Officers Talk Woman Off Whitestone Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_22415\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22415\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/MTA-Save-Woman_credit-Left-Leonard-Zhukovsky-Shutterstock-Right-RoySmith-commonswikimediaorg.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-22415\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/MTA-Save-Woman_credit-Left-Leonard-Zhukovsky-Shutterstock-Right-RoySmith-commonswikimediaorg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-22415\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Leonard Zhukovsky \/ Shutterstock.com | Right: RoySmith \/ commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Two MTA officers are being lauded as heroes after talking a distraught woman off the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. Partners Raheem Uddin and Jesusalberto Fernandez responded to a call of a distraught woman hanging off the bridge. Uddin described the desperate situation to <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/27\/us-news\/how-hero-mta-cops-talked-distraught-woman-off-ledge-on-whitestone-bridge-just-pray\/\"><em>The New York Post<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThe scary part of this whole situation was that she was sitting on the ledge, and two-thirds of her body was already off the ledge. The only way she had a grip was from one of those [Department of Transportation] signs \u2014 and we know that those DOT signs are hanging from a rod shooting up, and they\u2019re flimsy on the corners. She was hanging on to that,\u201d he said. <a href=\"https:\/\/ny1.com\/nyc\/all-boroughs\/mornings-on-1\/2026\/04\/27\/mta-officers-praised-for-helping-woman-on-whitestone-bridge\">Bodycam footage<\/a> shows the clearly distraught woman crying out as the officers approached her.<\/p>\n<p>Uddin cautiously approached the woman to speak to her while Fernandez hung back as support. Uddin has served on the force for four years while Fernandez has completed his first year. Prior to taking on the scene, Uddin offered Fernandez this advice: \u201cJust do a prayer. Just pray.\u201d Fernandez praised Uddin\u2019s level-headed behavior. \u201cI\u2019ve got to give credit to my partner, because as soon as we got there, he deescalated the situation with the individual, and while he maintained communication I was trying to support him by monitoring the scene and position myself to assist him if he needed,\u201d he said. In an interview with a local news station, Uddin stated he felt he had a developed \u201ca good rapport\u201d with the woman and was able to connect with her through his own childhood trauma. Both officers have been trained for such situations, but they said nothing can completely prepare you for the moment in action.<\/p>\n<p>The unidentified woman was clearly in psychological distress, stating she didn\u2019t want to live anymore. \u201cI just want to die. Oh, no one helps me. I never get that help. Everyone always says that, but no one really does,\u201d she said. Uddin reached out to the woman with love. \u201cI told her, \u2018I love you. Hey, listen. I\u2019m here to help. I love you, and I just want to be that help for you,\u2019\u201d he said, stating her approached her by asking her \u201csafe questions.\u201d When he asked her about her day, it took her off guard enough for Uddin to grab her and bring her into the \u201csafety zone.\u201d He called the moment \u201calmost a sign from God\u201d as he pulled the woman into a hug. He has continued to stay in touch with the woman, who was taken to received psychiatric help. He reported the woman is \u201ccomfortably\u201d living with her mom.<\/p>\n<p>Both men received praise from their union, with union President Joseph Pugliese lauding the men\u2019s actions. \u201cThey embody the very best qualities of all MTA police officers, who go above and beyond the call of duty every day to keep the public safe,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are proud to salute them for a job well done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two MTA officers are being lauded as heroes after talking a distraught woman off the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. Partners Raheem Uddin and Jesusalberto Fernandez responded to a call of a distraught woman hanging off the bridge. Uddin described the desperate situation to The New York Post. \u201cThe scary part of this whole situation was that she&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":22415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-messages"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Just pray.&#039; MTA Officers Talk Woman Off Whitestone Bridge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two MTA officers are hailed as heroes after rescuing a distraught woman from the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge in a dramatic save.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Just pray.&#039; MTA Officers Talk Woman Off Whitestone Bridge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two MTA officers are hailed as heroes after rescuing a distraught woman from the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge in a dramatic save.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-29T17:26:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/MTA-Save-Woman_credit-Left-Leonard-Zhukovsky-Shutterstock-Right-RoySmith-commonswikimediaorg.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'Just pray.' 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MTA Officers Talk Woman Off Whitestone Bridge","og_description":"Two MTA officers are hailed as heroes after rescuing a distraught woman from the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge in a dramatic save.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge.html","og_site_name":"Inspiration Report","article_published_time":"2026-04-29T17:26:27+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/MTA-Save-Woman_credit-Left-Leonard-Zhukovsky-Shutterstock-Right-RoySmith-commonswikimediaorg.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/just-pray-mta-officers-talk-woman-off-whitestone-bridge.html","name":"'Just pray.' 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MTA Officers Talk Woman Off Whitestone Bridge"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/","name":"Inspiration Report","description":"Inspiration News, Life Advice and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22418,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412\/revisions\/22418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}