State trooper Mike LeDoux admits to being scared when he was strapped into a harness and lowered from a bridge in Duluth in the middle of the night over a jet-black river.
But what you can't see can't hurt you, he said, and with trooper Matt Respet, he was able to shimmy down a steel cable and into the framework beneath the bridge to save a suicidal man, he recalled on Tuesday.
The rescue a year ago won the troopers a meritorious service award Tuesday during the Minnesota State Patrol's annual awards ceremony in Eagan.
"Courage is simply putting your fear aside and accomplishing what you need to accomplish," said LeDoux, who has won five meritorious service awards in a 17-year career. "I have been fortunate -- or unfortunate," he said.
About 2:45 a.m. on April 12, 2010, a 37-year-old man pedaled his bicycle onto the Blatnik Bridge in Duluth and, when approached by officers, jumped over the side. Miraculously, LeDoux said, the man landed on a beam about eight feet below, and crawled under the bridge.
"It was like someone was watching over him and giving him another chance," said LeDoux, who believed the man intended to fall into the St. Louis River below.
From the river, a St. Louis County sheriff's deputy equipped with night goggles pinpointed the man's location, LeDoux said. That left authorities on the bridge deck to decide whom to send down via a rope system set up by the Duluth and Superior, Wis., fire departments.
Given that the man might be armed, the assignment went to the troopers. LeDoux and Respet rappelled onto the beam and then spoke with him for about 30 minutes to keep him from jumping again.
