Linn County Sheriff’s Office recognizes lifesaving efforts

CEDAR RAPIDS - Eight Linn County Sheriff's Office employees have been recognized for their lifesaving efforts in 2015.

According to the sheriff's office:

- On Jan. 2, 2015, Deputy Todd Egli responded to the area of Highway 30 and Stoney Point Road for a report of a suspicious person. Upon his arrival, Egli found a subject on the overpass he determined to be suicidal. Egli had dispatch close Stoney Point Road and requested assistance from a Cedar Rapids police crisis negotiator.

Egli and the negotiator spoke with the suicidal subject, who eventually requested a lighter for a cigarette. A second deputy, Chad LeMense, had a lighter and brought it to the scene. The two deputies and Cedar Rapids officer were able to grab the subject and take him off the bridge. The subject was taken to a hospital, where Egli later met with his physicians to discuss the issues the man had been experiencing.

Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner said nearly three hours were spent in cold and windy conditions to get the man off the bridge.

- On Feb. 23, 2015, a male inmate was booked into a first floor holding cell to await arraignment. The charge he was arrested on did not require a strip search, Gardner said.

Less than an hour after being booked, the inmate was unresponsive when deputies Michael Norman and Matthew Leeper checked on him at the evening meal time. The man's face was discovered to be purple and his breathing was shallow.

Norman called out for a medical emergency and Nursing Health Care Coordinator Kelly Ehrisman and nurse Renee Henderson responded. Authorities determined the inmate had sneaked heroin into the jail and he was overdosing. Counteractive drugs were administered, the inmate regained consciousness and he was sent to the hospital for treatment. He later admitted to using heroin before entering the jail.

- On May 7, 2015, deputies James Uher and Chad Shover went to an apartment complex in Cedar Rapids to serve an eviction. There, they discovered a woman lying on her bed. She was unresponsive, pale and had a shallow breath and weak pulse. The deputies discovered a suicide note and empty pill bottle on the night stand. After calling for an ambulance, the woman's pulse and breathing stopped.

The deputies moved the woman to the floor and administered CPR until medical personnel arrived on the scene and determined her pulse had returned. She was hospitalized and later recovered from her suicide attempt.