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Man recording walk across bridge saves woman ready to jump

OMAHA, Neb. — A man in Omaha is being showered with gratitude for coming to the aid of a woman who may have been on the verge of hurting herself Tuesday. She was hanging over the railing of a pedestrian bridge while crying.

Realizing the urgency of the situation and the possibility of a suicide attempt, the man offered the woman kindness and a helping hand, and the entire episode was caught on camera.

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Ray'veonte Harris, 20, walks the Bob Kerrey pedestrian bridge often and usually livestreams it on social media as he talks with friends. But Tuesday was different.

"I walked the bridge one time and I had came back. And something told me just to walk it again," Harris told KETV.

On his third crossing, he saw something he'd never seen before, a woman was hanging over the edge of the bridge.

"I was just like, 'OK, this is awkward' because people are just walking past her and nobody is helping her out. So I looked up and I got closer to her and I seen tears," said Harris.

He asked her if she was OK and said he felt compelled to pull her down. He sat with the woman and worked to calm her down. Harris said he feels he was in the right place at the right time.

"She got to go home to her kid and her family members were in-boxing me and telling me thank you so much and she got to come home and a lot of people just don't get to come home," said Harris.

Harris said he asked someone to take a photo of him and the woman to show that everyone should help in a situation like that, and even before.

"I'm no hero, anybody can do it. Just check up on someone, you never know what someone's going through and there's always someone going through something worse than what you're going through," said Harris.

The woman was hospitalized to recover after her frightening episode.