Officer awarded for stopping suicide

FLOWERY BRANCH - Flowery Branch Police Officer Eric Cook was presented with a Lifesaver's Award Thursday at city hall for preventing a suicide.

Chief Gerald Lanich and Mayor Pro Tem Larry Pritchard presented the award to Cook in the wake of an attempted city council meeting which failed to achieve a quorum.

Cook, who has been with Flowery Branch for about six months, was able to help bring proper medical attention to a woman who had taken an overdose of pills in her car.

"Really, I'm more shocked and surprised right now than anything. I wasn't expecting it, but it makes you feel good," he said, "It makes you think about how this is what you're really in it for to start with."

Cook has been doing this kind of work with the Habersham County Sheriff's Office for eleven years, "You get in to this business to help people and save lives, and after a while you kind of veer off a little bit, and it puts you back on the right track."

He said he knew immediately that something was wrong, "Getting her to trust me was more important to me than anything. She actually was mad at me the whole time for stopping her. Poison control said that probably thirty more minutes and she would have been deceased."

"I get satisfaction knowing that I did a good job," he said.