FARMINGTON -- A University of Hartford student should get an "A" for effort in stopping a suicide.
On July 15, Nicholas Doddo, 21, was crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge on his drive home to New Jersey. Doddo was in bumper-to-bumper traffic at the peak of the bridge when another 21-year-old darted across his lane and climbed the barrier to jump.
Doddo said he threw his car in park, rushed over to the edge of the bridge, and grabbed the would-be jumper.
"The young man was laying over the railing, stomach on the railing," Doddo described. "His momentum had already began to shift over the railing. I had to grab him by the loop of his pants and twist it because his pants were so loose, and I grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him up, off the railing and pulled him back onto the ground."
Doddo said the guy didn't say a word until EMS arrived and asked him why he wanted to kill himself. His answer: "Nobody like(s) me."
Doddo said the man had escaped from a rehab facility van while on the bridge.
