With trust, EMT saves man from suicide

Around 7 a.m. yesterday, a young man was on top of an eight-story Back Bay garage, threatening to jump off.

So, like so many times before, Lieutenant Anthony Fiorino of Boston Emergency Medical Services arrived to try to talk him down. Fiorino, along with Boston police officers and firefighters, and his colleague, Josh Algarin, tried to build trust as the man ran along the ledge and yelled that he was going to jump.

''It looked like he was going to go," Fiorino said yesterday, hours after the ordeal, which ended with the man climbing down and hugging his rescuers.

Boston emergency medical technicians respond to thousands of calls a year from distraught people threatening to harm themselves or others. Fiorino said he has coaxed ''countless" people out of killing themselves. In the last six to seven months, he has talked five people out of committing suicide, including yesterday's would-be jumper.

The drama unfolded at the garage at 100 Clarendon St. and occurred just two days after Hercilio ''Ciro" Hasse, a doorman at the Four Seasons Place condominiums, apparently made a fatal leap from the rooftop of the luxury complex.

In yesterday's incident, a security guard spotted the man and initially tried to talk him down. When he couldn't, police, firefighters, and EMTs were called. Police did not release the man's name, but described him as a 32-year-old from Boston.

Fiorino and Algarin said they found the man on the edge of the parking lot roof. He threatened several times to jump if the men came closer. But soon he began to open up, telling Fiorino and Algarin he had many problems, including severe stress about life in the Army, which he said he had joined a few months before.

Fiorino offered him a cigarette, lighting it up for him, but the man refused to give him his hand. Eventually, the man sat down and the rescuers were able to approach. But suddenly, the man jumped and ran to the nearby wall, where he sat down, his body teetering on the ledge.

Fiorino pulled out another cigarette and offered it to him. Algarin told the man there were doctors who could help him and they could go see them together.

''I told him, 'We'll be right next to you,' " Algarin recalled.

Finally, after about two hours of interactions, the man climbed down the wall and walked to his rescuers. The would-be jumper was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital. Fiorino and Algarin rode with him in the ambulance.

''He wanted to talk," said Fiorino, an East Boston native with a slightly gruff voice. ''He was actually calling for help, indirectly. . . . A lot of them, that's what they're looking for. They want help and they don't know how to find it."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.