Nurses say they were blindsided by plan to end crisis teams

The nurse arrived at the Leaside Bridge ready to help.

A teenager was threatening to end their life.

Toronto fire crews asked the woman, specially trained to handle mental health crises, if she would be willing to don a harness and be lowered down to talk with the distressed youngster.

“They’re like, ‘Are you afraid of heights?’” the nurse recalled in an interview with the Star this week. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t mind roller-coasters.’”

She said she strapped in and went to the teen, who survived.

It is the type of dangerous, daily situation the nurses on Toronto police’s mobile crisis teams find themselves in. Paired with uniformed police officers, they respond to calls for people in crisis — working to de-escalate emotional situations, get people to safety and take them to hospital