West Mifflin women honored for talking woman off Homestead Grays Bridge

Tanikka Pinnix and her daughter weren’t actually supposed to be on the Homestead Grays Bridge on a chilly Thursday morning last month.

Pinnix and her teenage daughter, Layla Gooden, took an unplanned detour across the bridge on Jan. 28. There they saw a woman beginning to climb over the rail of the bridge. She had no coat, and one leg was already on the other side of the railing.

“When I saw the woman on the bridge that day, I saw my own child,” Pinnix, of West Mifflin, said Wednesday after she and her daughter were honored by Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and city Public Safety officials. An official proclamation declared Wednesday Tanikka Pinnix and Layla Gooden Day in the city.

The mother and daughter stopped their car on the bridge and talked to the woman in distress, convincing her to come back across the railing to safety. “I felt every emotion as though that were my own flesh and blood,” Pinnix said.

Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich responded to 911 calls about the woman in crisis that morning.

“I have responded to well over a dozen of these types of incidents and most don’t turn out well for the victim,” he said.

He called it a comfort to know that Pinnix and Gooden saved a life and “that stranger that you saved continues to be able to live today and receive the help that she needs.”

EMS District Chief Justin Sypolt told the women that a fellow human is walking among the living because of their decision to help.

“I know that on that day you probably didn’t wake up thinking that today’s the day I’m going to change the world,” he said, “but due to a series of unpredictable events, change the world you did.”

Help is available. The National Suicide Hotline is available 24/7 at 800-273-8255.

A line with options for hearing-impaired is available, and a Spanish-language line is available at 1-888-628-9454.