Falling Down

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. Author Unknown

Spanish Harlem is full of life on summer nights, but this young lady wanted to die. The crowd of onlookers pointed fingers at a teenage girl standing atop a fire escape rail, dangling her body over the rusty rail and throwing pieces of jewelry to the street below.

An elderly man told me that she was loco and would probably jump. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away. I raced up the wooden stairs of the old tenement building, hoping to quickly locate the window leading to the distraught teenager. I found the open window on the fifth floor.

I poked my head outside the window and pleaded with the girl not to jump. A mouthful of clichés was all I could offer. “You’re too young to die. You’re too beautiful. You have family and friends that love you.”

My words only contributed to her death wish—she released one hand from the railing. I did not want to be the last face she saw before jumping off the fire escape. And I did not want to see the look on her face as she went free-falling to a dirty New York City street.

“I’m sick of all this shit and just want to fuckin’ die!” she screamed at me. She tore away a pair of earrings and threw them at the growing crowd of spectators.

I was tired and unsure. My morning was spent in a college classroom, far removed from this urban drama. I was studying to become a teacher and learning about Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Now I was dressed in the uniform of an NYC police sergeant trying to persuade a teenager that her life was worth living. My powers of persuasion were having the same effect as Superman wearing a suit of kryptonite.

I squeezed through the small window and stood within a few feet of the jumper. “Don’t get any closer,” she said. Suddenly my clichés did not sound like trite words. “I’m not going to get any closer to you….”

She jumped.

Call it luck or fate or divine intervention but I managed to grab hold of one of her arms as she leapt from her wrought iron perch. Her weight quickly pulled the top half of my body over the railing and I could feel my feet lifting off the grated floor. Lord, give me strength echoed through my mind. My partner reached out from inside the room and he grabbed the back of my belt. I could feel her arm slipping away from my hold and told him to run downstairs; he needed to be on the fire escape directly below us. Soon he was staring up at us, trying to grab hold of a pair of swinging legs.

I was attending college because I wanted to become a teacher and work with troubled teenagers, the types of young people roaming our streets like so many broken toys. I wanted to save souls and was now losing a life.

Lord, please give me strength; I need only a few more minutes of strength.

My partner managed to take hold of the girl’s legs, relieving some of the stress on my back and arms. I quickly tucked my hands under her armpits and pulled her up. We each sat huffing and puffing on the old fire escape.

A few stories have fairy tale endings, but most just end. The suicidal teenager was taken to a local hospital and I returned to patrol the streets of Spanish Harlem. A few weeks later I saw her hanging out on a street corner, laughing and listening to music with friends.

I sometimes see her face in the faces of the students that I teach today. I got my wish to teach and mentor troubled teenagers. My students suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and psychosis. Some are lonely, some are sad, some are angry, and some are frightened. But all risk falling down unless we are there to catch them.

~Anthony J. Mullen

2009 National Teacher of the Year

2009 Connecticut State Teacher of the Year

Special Education teacher, grades 9-12