A 39-year-old man was arrested on the suspicion of attempted murder after he dropped a three-year-old girl 50ft off a bridge into a river.
Greater Manchester Police in the UK believes that the incident at Astley Bridge, Bolton, where officers were forced to pull the toddler and man to safety, may have been an attempted murder-suicide.
The man was approached by Police officers at around 8.30pm on Friday evening in Crompton Way – where the man was reportedly threatening to drop the toddler into the river below.
The man refused to speak to specially-trained police negotiators and then dropped the girl into the water at 9.50pm, before jumping in himself.
A Police officer who was already in the river quickly rescued the toddler, and she was taken to hospital where she was found to have a broken wrist.
After both the man and the toddler were out of the water, a witness claims that he heard the man asking medics if the child was okay.
After falling into the water, the man was also recovered and taken to a nearby car park, where he was found to only have minor injuries.He was later arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
Stephen Lomax heard the commotion from Cineworld car park, which sits at water level.
He said to Bolton News: ‘I heard shouts and screaming, the man had a deep growl. The little girl must have been terrified.’
Lomax said that following the rescue from the river, police took the man to the car park nearby where they waited for an ambulance.
Lomax was driving down Crompton Way towards Astley Bridge when he was turned back at the police cordon.
He saw police officers arrive at the Cineworld car park and head towards the river with torches for the rescue operation.
Another man has spoken of his horror after driving past the scene and seeing the man dangling his legs over the side of the bridge with the three-year-old on his lap.
Simon Hartshorn, 50, said: ‘I was passing at around half eight last night following my friend in a car, I saw a cop car, an officer, a pram and the man sat on the bridge with his arms around a young girl.I said to my friend it looks like he has got a young child on him when I got to his house. An hour or two later I was making my way home when I spotted all of the roads blocked off. There was so many police officers and cars blocking the roads off and dealing with it. I was only told this morning that he has jumped.’
Hartshorn said it was such a shock to have something like this happen so locally.
He added: ‘I can’t believe they both survived, I know they have injuries but what has the kid done, nothing. I can’t get my head round it.’
A Cineworld employee, who wished to remain anonymous, said to reporters ‘Loads of police and ambulances turned up last night.We didn’t know what was happening and our supervisors were running around to try and work out what was going on. One of the policemen explained the situation and told us not to go round the back and into that area. I have seen on the news this morning that the girl has survived but I don’t know how, the bridge is so high.’