Nashville Officer Is Found Dead After Attempting to Save a Suicidal Woman

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/nashville-police-officer-dead-river.html

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A Tennessee police officer was found dead on Thursday morning after he was swept into the Cumberland River while attempting to save a suicidal woman, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said.

Steve Anderson, the chief of police in Nashville, said in an emotional statement to the news media that Officer Eric Mumaw, 44, an 18-year veteran of the force, had “lost his life this morning while saving a life.”

Chief Anderson added: “I know he died doing what he loves. He loved this midnight shift. And he gave his life.”

Officers had been called to the bank of the river in Madison, a suburban neighborhood in northeast Nashville, just after 4 a.m. by a relative of the unidentified woman, 40, who said she was suicidal, a Police Department spokesman said in an earlier news conference.

The police, including Officer Mumaw, discovered the woman in a car on a boat ramp at the edge of the water. After about 10 minutes of conversation, the spokesman said, it appeared the woman had agreed to leave the car, but the vehicle “suddenly went into gear and rolled down into water.”

In an attempt to remove the woman from the moving car, two officers slipped off the boat ramp and were dragged into the cold, rolling water.

Officer Mumaw was last seen about 4:40 a.m., 50 to 60 yards from the ramp, the police said. At 9:14 a.m., the Nashville police announced that his body had been found.

The other officer involved, who was not immediately identified, made it out of the river and was taken to a hospital for treatment.

The woman escaped the submerged car and was also being treated at a hospital, the police said.

Chief Anderson remembered Officer Mumaw as a man with a sense of humor.

“We always traded insults with each other in a friendly way,” he said. “We’ll get through this with Nashville’s support.”