Traffic on the 40th Street Bridge came to a stop Tuesday afternoon after bystanders spotted a man standing on the edge of the span, threatening to jump into the Allegheny River below. Among those who stopped was Herky Pollock, a 62-year-old Pittsburgh business leader who pulled his car over immediately, walked toward the railing, and ended up spending about three hours helping police reach the 26-year-old man safely.
The distress call came in to 911 at 3:41 p.m. on Tuesday, and emergency responders closed the bridge to traffic from 3:47 p.m. until 6:55 p.m. while they negotiated with the man, according to TribLIVE. Pollock, president and CEO of Legacy Realty Partners and co-founder of Legacy Hospitality Partners, said he rarely drives across the 40th Street Bridge and was on his way from East Liberty to the North Shore that afternoon when he saw the young man standing on the other side of the railing, holding on and visibly distraught.
Pollock found the man contemplating jumping and worked alongside Millvale Police Chief Tim Komoroski, Detective Zach Potetz and Officer Jessica Brenning to try to connect with him. Komoroski said civilians ordinarily should not be present during such situations, but he allowed Pollock to stay once Pollock had established a rapport with the man. Komoroski later called Pollock an asset that day, and Pollock said the rescue was ultimately a group effort.
A Father Speaking to a Son on the Ledge
The man told responders he was from Washington, D.C., and had been passing through Pittsburgh. At first, he said he did not believe what responders were telling him. Pollock offered him legal support, job opportunities, medical help and political connections in an effort to give him reasons to step back from the edge, and he promised to celebrate the man's life when he turns 30.
In the final 30 to 40 minutes of the standoff, Komoroski spoke to the man like a father would speak to a son, according to the account relayed to the same outlet, and it was that approach that finally got the man to come off the ledge. Komoroski said afterward that he hoped the young man would get the help he needs.
Drawing on a Personal Loss From Decades Ago
Pollock said the pain of losing his own stepfather motivated him to stay and help. His stepfather, George Teplitz, died by suicide on April 24, 1996, at age 70 after jumping from the Homestead High-Level Bridge, which spans the Monongahela River and was renamed the Homestead Grays Bridge in July 2002 to honor the Negro Leagues baseball team, per Pittsburgh Beautiful. Pollock told the man about his stepfather and the lasting impact of his death, using that history to try to reach him.
After the man reached safety, Pollock borrowed a medic's phone to call his wife, Lisa, who volunteers for Pittsburgh Action Against Rape, to tell her he was running late. Pollock, who grew up in Squirrel Hill and Shadyside and now lives in downtown Pittsburgh, has built a prominent local business profile in recent years. He rebranded his commercial development business as Legacy Development Partners in June, consolidating a portfolio that includes the Streets of Cranberry and Blue Spruce Shoppes, according to Patch. Before launching his independent Legacy platform in August 2024, he spent 29 years as an executive vice president at CBRE and helped found the firm's Pittsburgh office, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has reported.
A Bridge With a Recent History of Crisis Calls
The 40th Street Bridge, officially the Washington Crossing Bridge, was completed in December 1924, stretches 2,366 feet across the Allegheny River, and sits roughly 72.5 feet above the water, connecting Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood with Millvale Borough, according to its Wikipedia entry. It is not the first time the span has been the site of a life-or-death intervention this year: in May, two Millvale police officers, Jennifer Harpur and Tim McDonough, helped save a 26-year-old woman who threatened to jump from the same bridge, and both received official department commendations for it in July.
Millvale Borough itself covers just 0.68 square miles along the north bank of the Allegheny River, about four miles northeast of downtown Pittsburgh, meaning a small municipal police force has repeatedly found itself responding to major crises on a heavily trafficked river crossing. Allegheny County's age-adjusted suicide rate has recently stood at 12.4 per 100,000 residents, below the statewide rate of 13.5, meeting a Healthy People 2030 target, per Pennsylvania Department of Health data cited by the National Institutes of Health's HDPulse. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated 2.2 million suicide attempts in the United States in 2024, a 1.5-fold increase from 2023 even as overall suicide deaths dipped slightly, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Allegheny County residents in crisis can reach Resolve Crisis Services, a free 24/7 program co-sponsored by Allegheny County DHS and UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital that dispatches mobile response units countywide and operates a walk-in clinic in Pittsburgh's East End. For Pollock, the encounter on the bridge tied his public role in the city's business community to a private grief he has carried since his stepfather's death three decades ago, and to a hope, shared by Komoroski, that the young man now gets the support he needs to see his 30th birthday.
