Garden City ? A trip to the local Wal-Mart turned out to be a life-changing event for a Garden City man whose quick reflexes saved an 18-year-old woman from possible death.

Robert DeLeon, 40, his wife, Delma, and their young daughter had just finished shopping around 7:30 p.m. Thursday and were driving home when Delma noticed a woman sitting on the overpass for Kansas Highway 156 and U.S. Highway 83, her feet dangling over the side.

“I turned the van around and saw a young girl crying,” Robert DeLeon said. “I must have driven by her at least three times before I found the courage to talk to her.”

DeLeon said he was nervous because he didn’t know if his presence would make her jump. When he approached her, she told him in Spanish that she was not OK.

“She told me she wanted to end her life,” said DeLeon, who also speaks Spanish. “I told her she didn’t have to seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

He said he thought he had convinced the woman to come back to his van, but then a police car pulled up and she panicked and jumped.

“I reached out and had an arm around her waist, then I reached with the other hand and grabbed her belt,” he said.

Once the woman was pulled to safety, she was taken into custody by police and transported to the local hospital for a mental evaluation.

“I know that God gave me strength to go up and talk to her,” said DeLeon, a state field manager for Big Brothers Big Sisters and a youth pastor for the Salvation Army. “I work with kids in both of those programs that probably felt just like that young lady did.”

DeLeon said he hoped to get in touch with the woman and help her in any way he could.

“There are so many kids on those bridges,” he said. “We just don’t even know it. We need to be sure that kids are not so hopeless and feel that jumping off the bridge is the final answer.”