Marine Scales Tree to Save Troubled Man from Killing Himself

Marine Scales Tree to Save Troubled Man from Killing Himself: 'What I Did Was Not a Heroic Act'
People.com
BY SUSAN KEATING
07/07/2015

"When the sergeant arrived, he said, 'Hey, I'm a Marine, and I'm here to help your friend,' " Tow says. "I was so happy to see him."

Marine Sergeant Cody Leifheit

SGT. REECE LODDER

When Marine Sergeant Cody Leifheit awakened to screams from outside his apartment at 2 a.m., the 28-year-old at first thought the sound was from revelers leaving a bar. Then a hysterical voice screamed: "He's dying!"

Leifheit, who arrived in town only a week earlier to start his job as a Marine Corps recruiter in Lewiston, Idaho, jumped from bed and ran outside. There, a group of young people stood gaping at a horrific site: A man hanging by the neck from a rope, suspended from a tree branch some 25 feet above the ground.

The 19-year-old man, who asked that PEOPLE refer to him only by his first name, Tristan, had been lounging with friends inside an elaborate series of hammocks strung from trees. While in his hammock in the early morning hours of June 7, Tristan repeated to friends that he wanted to jump to his death from a tree. The friends thought that Tristan, who has sole custody of his 14-year-old brother, Dartanian, was joking. Suddenly, up in the trees, Tristan stopped talking.
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