Among the tragedy of the bridge collapse next to FIU’s campus, are stories of heroes who jumped in to save lives when the bridge came crashing down.
One Sweetwater Police Officer wasn’t even on duty yet but that didn’t stop her from making a difference.
Sergeant Jenna Mendez says she was waiting at the traffic light just before the bridge on her way to work when she saw it come down. “I thought to myself why are they doing that, why are they bringing the bridge down right now. I was in disbelief of what I was seeing and I think I was kind of in a state of shock immediately.”
Just spoke to this amazing @SweetwaterPD Sgt. who saw the #FIUBridgecollapse while heading to work and rescued 2 people. @FOX29WFLX@WPTVpic.twitter.com/SpT68RIPB0
— Stephanie Susskind (@StephanieWPTV) March 16, 2018
Once she realized what happened, she raced to the bridge to help. “I saw the vehicles underneath, I saw construction workers on top that needed assistance,” she says.
She went straight to the top to help those injured workers. “I started screaming down to the crowd that I need help, I need fire rescue, I need doctors, give me somebody.”
She performed CPR and helped get two injured workers to the hospital who may not have survived otherwise. She says, “he was actually still strapped to the structure, so we had to stop midair to unbuckle him from the structure to get him down, we were able to get both gentlemen down and I did get word from fire rescue that (they) did survive, one is in a coma and the other was in cardiac arrest at the hospital, so they’re in critical but they’re alive.”
Mendez believes anyone else would have helped in that situation but knows she was at that traffic light for a reason. “Thank God, thank God I was there, we could assist and two lives were saved.”