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WSU Cougars DB Grant Porter intervenes in probable suicide attempt

PULLMAN – If Grant Porter never scores a touchdown or intercepts a pass, he will still be a success at Washington State.

Porter intervened in a probable suicide attempt earlier this week, and by doing so likely saved a life.

A little after midnight on Wednesday morning, Porter and a friend were returning to his apartment from Moscow, Idaho. Porter’s apartment complex has a basketball court near the parking lot, and the pair noticed a 24-year-old man with his hands bound behind his back with a lanyard, standing on a chair with a bungie cord fixed to the basketball hoop’s rim and then tied around his neck.

Porter made a U-turn in the parking lot and ran onto the court to see what was going on.

“I didn’t know if it was a joke or what, so I just went to see what was going on,” Porter said. “He said he had been kidnapped.”

Porter was wary about the potential of dangerous people nearby, so after he undid the binds around the man’s hand and let him down from the chair, he asked him questions about the nature of the kidnapping.

“I asked him who kidnapped him and he said ‘some (bad people),’” Porter said. “So I asked where they went and he said he didn’t know, so I said OK, well let me untie you.”

Porter assisted the man down from the chair, noticing that he had cutmarks and scars on his hands and wrists, potential indicators that someone has been harming himself. The man thanked Porter, then gathered up the ropes and ties and took them to his car.

“I got him down and he said thank you and everything. Then he took all the stuff he said he’d been kidnapped with and took it back to his car,” Porter said. “I was just confused then realized he hadn’t been kidnapped. We called the police and they took over from there.”

Porter said he and his friend, University of Idaho student Allison Schomburg, stayed near to make sure the man did not leave, while Schomburg called the police. When the police arrived, they found the 24-year-old man sitting in his car, with Porter and Schomburg nearby.

Pullman police Chief Gary Jenkins told the Seattle Times that when officers arrived they found the man in his car, and that he told the policemen he was depressed.

Jenkins told the times, “WSU athletes, just like other WSU students, are good citizens in our community and regularly make positive contributions. Most of the time those positive contributions don’t receive the same amount of attention as when an athlete is in trouble. It’s good for the public to know that WSU athletes are good citizens.”