Local police and firefighters helped rescue a man from one of the Salem water towers Monday morning. Salem Police, Salem Fire, and ambulance personnel responded to a call about a man who had apparently climbed up the east water tower off of East Main Street around 11:10 Monday morning. Salem Police Chief Ron Campo says the victim had climbed up there on his own sometime Sunday evening. "He got the attention of a truck driver in the lot. So we were faced with how do we make contact with him. It was so windy that we couldn't make any contact with him. So two of my officers volunteered to put on harnesses and take the extension ladder from the fire truck up as high as it would go, and it still left them about 100 feet to go, and with harnesses and firemen, they climbed up there and made contact with the subject, and at that point they were able to determine that he was scared, and he wasn't going to come down", said Campo. Campo says they called in the Centralia Fire Department to help them get him down. The victim was harnessed down by the Centralia Technical Rescue Team around 2:30pm. The Centralia TRT are experts at high altitude rescue. He says the reason the victim climbed up the tower was because the victim was despondent, and threatened to commit suicide. The victim was taken to Salem Township Hospital for evaluation. The name of the victim is not being released. - http://goo.gl/DmKBO
