The drama happened at Spring Garden Point Park on Friday, and Miami Police officer Lucas Pereira says his childhood growing up near the ocean in Brazil prepared him to literally jump into action.
The call came in to police that a man who seemed mentally ill and had severe injuries was acting erratically and threatening to harm himself. When Pereira and his partner arrived at the park, a bystander told them there was a man in trouble.
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“There was a vagrant male acting erratically at the park, with his organs exposed, hanging from his body, open sores,” Pereira said, relaying what he was told.
The officers spotted the man in the Miami River. They shouted at him to swim to shore, and they threw him a life preserver, but he ignored them. So Pereira decided to go beyond the call of duty and endanger his own life to save another.
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“And our next step was to jump in the water, so I decided to take my uniform off, my gun belt, told my partner to watch my equipment, and decided to jump in,” Pereira said. “At the end of the day, it’s a life, and one of the things we do as police officers is to protect and preserve life.”
The man was sinking, so Pereira didn’t have much time. Much of the action was captured in a viral video posted on Only in Dade.
“He was unconscious under the water when I grabbed him, when I got close to him I had to dive in, and again, he was slowly sinking to the bottom of the river,” Pereira explained. “I was able to grab onto his right arm and bring him back to the surface.”
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Pereira thinks the man he saved is mentally ill and was trying to commit suicide, and might have ripped a colostomy bag off of his own torso, leaving his organs exposed.
I asked him if, now that he knows the man may have been suicidal, he would’ve done the same thing.
“Absolutely, I’ll do it all over again,” Pereira said.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.