Mother Of Woman Saved By MLB Umpire: 'God Had To Place Him There'

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A young woman about to jump off the Clemente Bridge was stopped by a stranger who turned out to be a Major League umpire last week, and Monday, the woman's mother had a special message for him.

The image most people will remember is Major League Baseball umpire John Tumpane trying to comfort a distraught woman who had intended to commit suicide by jumping off the Clemente Bridge.

While all eyes were focused on him, Serena Goudy was looking at the woman. She knew immediately was her 23-year-old daughter.

"I definitely know my daughter, and I knew by her arm and the bottom of her mouth that was my daughter," Goudy said.

A chance meeting with a total stranger saved her daughter's life.

Goudy says her daughter had just received bad news and had a feeling of hopelessness. As a mother, she is forever grateful for what she describes as divine intervention.

"God had to place him there," Goudy said. "God had to have placed him there, and I thank God for that because if he wouldn't have gone across this bridge and seen this woman doing this, I don't know how I would be talking right now."

Goudy's daughter is getting the help she needs to get her life back on track. But she and her mother realize it's this man, John Tupmane, a man she never met, that saved her life literally.

"Thank you, John, thank you so much for saving my daughter's life," Goudy said. "Our family loves her, and we love him for saving her because without him, I don't know where our family would be. We would be in turmoil."

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