Apr. 5, 1963 - A sobbing truck driver was pulled to safety from his precarious perch on a railing of the Manhattan Bridge today as he was threatening to leap into the East River 150 feet below. As Police Sergeant Edward O’Connor and Patrolman Patrick Brannigan yanked him from the brink, Anthony Crutale, 39, of Brooklyn, cried: “I am going to lose my wife. She is going to leave me.” Police said Mr. Crutale, a World War II Marine and holder of a Purple Heart, drove toward Brooklyn on the upper roadway of the bridge at 11 a.m. Halfway across, he parked his car and climbed to the railing. Passersby summoned the police, and Sgt. O’Connor and Officer Brannigan responded. While Sgt. O’Connor talked to Mr. Crutale, Officer Brannigan grabbed him. Mr. Crutale tried to break away, but O’Connor latched on to him too, and the two cops pulled him to safety. It was all in a day’s work for two of New York’s finest.
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