A woman who was precariously perched atop a building in the Hoboken housing projects for hours threatening to jump two weeks ago was recovering at home last week.
Meanwhile, the councilwoman who is credited with saving her life reflected on the events of that day.
The long day started at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 8. Early that morning, Councilwoman Nellie Moyeno received a call from her friend, Milagros Ramos, 44, of Jackson Street. Ramos told Moyeno that she was in a lot of pain and was distraught. Ramos said she was going to go to the hospital.
Moyeno said she would meet Ramos at the hospital. But when Moyeno arrived at the hospital, Ramos wasn’t there, and immediately, she knew that something was amiss.
“Looking back at it, I never should have hung up the phone that first time,” said Moyeno. “I knew something was horribly wrong.”
A worried Moyeno then went out to search for her friend of four years. On the way, she ran into former Councilman James Fitzsimmons, a police lieutenant who was off duty at the time. Together, they went out to find the traumatized Ramos.
When Moyeno’s cell phone rang again, it was Ramos, crying and nearly incomprehensible. Ramos said that she just couldn’t take it anymore, and that she was on the roof of the ten-story 320 Jackson St. ready to jump. When Moyeno and Fitzsimmons reached the roof of the building, they saw her perched on the ledge. A seven-foot cast iron fence and another three-foot chain length fence separated the two of them from Ramos.
“Jimmy and I made our best efforts to talk her down. Eventually we worked our way through the first fence and talked with her for several hours,” said Moyeno.
During that time, Fitzsimmons and Moyeno were fitted with a rope and harness supplied by the officials from the Port Authority Police Department. Also present for the rescue were members of the Hoboken Police Department, Hoboken Fire Department, Port Authority Emergency Services Unit, the Jersey City Medical Center Mobile Crisis Unit, and the Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
“Sometime you take for granted the police and fire department,” Moyeno would say later. “But you have to give them all the praise in the world. They do a great job and are out there everyday risking their lives.”
After four hours in the hot sun, the tense climax came at about 3:54 p.m., when Moyeno made her daring move to save her friend.
Moyeno risked her own safety by reaching over a chain link fence to grab Ramos before she was able to jump from the roof of 320 Jackson St.
As she took hold of Ramos, she found the strength to keep her from falling, even though Ramos’s feet dangled completely over the edge. There were gasps from the crowd of over 200 people that had gathered on the ground below.
“I have never been so nervous in my whole life,” said a still-emotional Moyeno last week. “I don’t know where the strength came from, but the one thing I knew was that I wasn’t going to let go. I could never live with myself if I did. Every day since then I thank God for giving me the strength, ’cause I know that I didn’t do it myself.”
As Moyeno took hold, Port Authority Police Sgt. John Flynn and Hoboken Police Lt. James Fitzsimmons ran to Moyeno’s aid and pulled the pair to safety.
“Nellie really is a true hero,” said Fitzsimmons Thursday. “She was the one who was out there taking the risks. She was the one who put her safety aside to save another. This is an act of bravery that you don’t see everyday. She deserves all the praise she gets.”
Home recovering
Ramos was taken to the hospital and released the next day on her own recognizance. She was home recovering last week but did not answer phone calls made by the Reporter.
Moyeno said that she believes that Ramos will be fine, and that Ramos knows she has people to turn to.
“The next day I got to talk to her, and she thanked me,” Moyeno said. “We cried together. I told her that no matter how big her problems are, that I would be there to help her, and no matter what is wrong, we could solve it together.”
Was distraught over family issues
Ramos was distraught about the prospects of her daughter taking her granddaughter from her, and other private family matters, Moyeno said.
“We sat down and talked and I told her that she has to think about her granddaughter,” Moyeno said. “I believe in the future that she [Ramos] is going to be successful in putting her granddaughter first.”
Moyeno said she has learned some very valuable life lessons.
“I’ve learned that you have to treasure every minute of life,” said Moyeno. She added, alluding to her recent loss in the May 8 City Council election, “It seems like the last couple months I’ve been through hell and back. But this really puts life into perspective. I think I’ve learned a valuable lesson that things are never as bad as they seem.”