Personnel of the Thoppumpady police pulled a man to safety from the swirling currents of the Kochi backwaters in the early hours of Wednesday.
The 40-year-old man, a native of Mannamcherry, Alappuzha, had reportedly jumped off the Thoppumpady bridge around 1 a.m. On an alert, the police rushed to the spot.
“As our team reached the spot, we could see the man floating for a while before clinging on a pillar of the bridge. We followed him down the bridge and made attempts to rescue him,” said an officer at the Thoppumpady station.
However, launching a rescue operation was never going to be easy. The waterbody was flowing in full fury, while the visibility condition posed difficulty to the police.
They soon threw a lifebuoy towards the person and got him trapped in a rope. At the same time, another group of policemen moved to the man on a mechanised boat and rescued him.
“As the police boat had been sent on VIP duty to Kochi, we quickly arranged another one from the harbour nearby. The move proved crucial, as he might not have been able to survive the frigid waters for long,” the officer said.
He was later rushed to a nearby hospital, where his condition was said to be stable. Investigations suggested that the man had been frustrated over family issues and had jumped into the waters in a bid to end life.
