: Traffic Officer Michael Bodibe point to the ledge a girl attempting suicide stood barefooted.
IN a scene that could have been in an action movie, a Wits traffic control officer grabbed the arm of a young girl and stopped her plunging to her death on the M1 South highway on Wednesday morningOfficer Michael Bodibe says he was walking up towards the Amic deck, at aabout 10.20am, when he saw a woman’s handbag and shoes lying on the grass. He then noticed a girl who had climbed over a railing and was standing on the ledge of the Amic deck, above the highway.
“You know, I just said to myself; if I can save this girl dear God… the only life lost now is my radio which fell on the ledge), but at least that can be retrieved.”
. As Bodibe was holding onto the girl, he called on some students to help him pull her over the railing (almost a metre high). “I grabbed her hand because I saw that if I held her jersey – she’d be gone.”
Once Bodibe and two students helped get the girl over the railing, Bodibe says he borrowed a radio from a colleagues and called security campus. “They literally had to cuddle her because she was fighting them off, screaming ‘let me go, let me go’”, said Rofhiwa Madzena, a first year student who witnessed the event.
“He (Bodibe) literally caught her in the nick of time. I feel pretty traumatised… It was unbelievable because sadly, you see this in the movies, but don’t expect to see it first-hand”.
Bodibe says campus security arrived shortly after he made the SOS call. “They (campus security) took her to Social Sciences – they went with the boy who helped me.”
On Thursday, Bodibe said the social work department confirmed the girl was brought to their offices. Michael Mahada of campus control said, “The student is in a stable condition and has now been transferred to a hospital where she is being treated”.
