PARKERSBURG, W.Va. – West Virginia State Troopers are trained to protect and serve and sometimes save lives. Cpl. C.J. Weekley, of the Parkersburg detachment, used the training he learned on the job and his instincts to prevent a suicide.
Weekley does not consider himself a hero. He said he was just doing his job last week when he got a call about a domestic disturbance at a home in Walker near Mineral Wells.
“We just knew it was a domestic situation. We didn’t know what was going on,” Weekley explained.
He pulled up in front of the house and walked up the front steps.
“[I] started to go in the front door and I heard everybody screaming. It was hard to tell what was going on on the other side,” said Weekley.
As soon has he stepped over the threshold he was met by several distraught family members.
“They came over to me and asked for help and led me to the back bedroom of the residence,” according to Weekley.
What he found was a man hanging by a belt from the wooden clothes rod in a closet. Weekley stressed he didn’t have time to think about what was going on. He knew 22-year-old Adam Miller was in serious distress. He was turning purple and going into convulsions.
“I didn’t think twice about it. I just reached straight for my knife and looking back on it, I didn’t put much thought into it. I just went right for him.”
Weekley cut Miller down from the rod and family members helped him move the nearly unconscious man to the bed where he began gasping for breath. That’s when the trooper learned Miller had physically attacked several family members before he went into the back bedroom.
Once another trooper arrived, Weekley said he was able convince Miller to get some help.
“I took him to [Camden Clark] Hospital to have him checked out because he said he was going to refuse any emergency personnel that came to the scene.”
Col. Jay Smithers stressed Weekley was able to establish a rapport with Miller.
“Cpl. Weekley relied upon his training and, as a result, a young man’s life was saved and his family is spared the agony of becoming yet another ‘survivor’ of someone who completed suicide,” said Smithers.
Weekley stressed he was only doing his job when he saved Miller’s life but he was glad he could help.