The Police Command in Lagos State on Friday said it had rescued one Taiwo Momoh who attempted to jump into the Lagoon from the Third Mainland Bridge.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, told newsmen in Lagos that Momoh was in a taxi heading toward Oworonshoki on Third Mainland Bridge when she told the taxi driver to stop on the bridge.
Owoseni said the woman was about to jump into the lagoon when a police patrol team on a routine patrol sighted her and held her before she could do so.
“She attempted suicide by trying to jump into the Lagoon around Oworonshoki inwards Mainland on Third Mainland Bridge, but she was rescued,“he said.
The commissioner said from his interaction with the woman, she had depression as a result of unpaid loans and insisted that she wanted to end her life.
Owoseni noted that committing suicide was an offence under the law but that the police would try to talk to the woman out of committing suicide.
He said the woman would be taken through post-trauma programme to ensure that she had hope and not to commit suicide.
The commissioner said that the police would do a medical evaluation on her to ascertain her condition.
Owoseni said that the police had begun the patrol of bridges across the state to forestall other cases of suicide.
He said henceforth, it would be an offence for individuals to walk on bridges in the state, and that no vehicle would be allowed to stop on any bridge to prevent suicide incidences.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that recently, a medical doctor, Allwell Orji, had jumped into the Lagoon from Third Mainland Bridge.
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, said the late doctor’s body had been recovered from the Lagoon by the Marine Police.
Adesina Tiamiyu, General manager of LASEMA, said the body was identified and confirmed as his by family members of the late doctor.
“The body was identified by some of his family members including the driver in the presence of the commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Mr Fatai Owoseni,” the LASEMA boss said.
NAN also reports that the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi Araba, has initiated a Suicide Prevention Service to check the spate of suicide cases in the country.(NAN)