A Port Royal police officer, on the job less than a year, is being credited for going above and beyond the call of duty to save the life of a woman having a mental health crises at the town's public beach Tuesday.
Karina Fraire-Galindo, a Port Royal police officer, was patrolling the popular Sands Beach Tuesday when she spotted a woman standing on the edge of the floating dock who appeared to be talking on the phone. She was crying.
At about that same time, as Fraire-Galindo was parking her patrol vehicle, she received a dispatch about a woman threatening suicide.
Frairie-Galindo quickly made contact with the anguished woman and tried to get her away from the dock's edge. But she resisted and then jumped into Battery Creek. Without hesitation, Port Royal police said, Fraire-Galindo removed her body armor and weapon and jumped into the water herself. Fraire-Galindo then grabbed the woman and swam to the shore line. Bystanders assisted the officer in getting the woman out of the water.
The Beaufort County EMS transported the 23-year-old woman to Beaufort Memorial Hospital where she Port Royal police say she received the assistance she needed.
Fraire-Galindo most "certainly saved this young woman and we commend her for going over and beyond the call of duty," Capt. John Griffith of the Port Royal Police Department said.
Fraire-Galindo hasn't been on the job long.
The former U.S. Marine joined the Port Royal Police Department in September and then went through training at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, where she graduated in February. She has only been working in a solo capacity for a short time after being recently released from the department's Field Training Program, Griffith said.
At the time she encountered the distressed woman, Frairie-Galindo was on what police refer to as a "proactive patrol," in which officers attempt to prevent crimes before they occur in a given area.
When she saw the woman on the dock, Frairie-Galindo immediately knew "something was off" and responded, Griffith told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet Wednesday morning.
"In our business, if something raises the hair off the back of your neck, something is not right," Griffith said.
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