WINONA, Minn. –Police talked a suicidal woman back from a ledge on the Garvin Heights overlook above the city. The woman, age 31, was taken to the Winona hospital with a dozen self-inficted slices on a forearm, none of them too deep. This was about 1:05 p.m. Police had been alerted to self-harm selfies and suicidal comments online. An officer went to an address in the 650 block of West Broadway. The woman had left already and reportedly was beaded for Garvin Heights. The officer found her car unoccupied and locked in a parking lot. The woman was on the overlook ledge a hundred feet away in the freezing afternoon with her legs hanging over the other side with a drop off the bluff of several hundred feet. The officer called for a rescue team and ambulance and began to calm and persuade the woman off the ledge. After 15 minutes or so, the woman climbed out of danger. She was triaged and taken to the hospital.
Garvin Heights overlook. A summer view. Six-hundred feet above Winona with 170 feet straight down. In December, with trees bare of their summer foliage, there little to slow a fall.