Breaking open a newly installed wooden door fastened with two latches, Sub Inspector S Manoj of Chadayamangalam Police Station in Kollam brought down a 17-year-old girl who had attempted suicide by hanging and administered CPR, continuing for nearly eight minutes. At one point, Manoj thought he might collapse from exhaustion. But the girl regained consciousness, and he and Home Guard Jyothy P S rushed her to a nearby hospital. “I thought of my children then. And the courage and strength followed,” recalls Manoj, 55, a native of Veliyam in Kottarakkara.

The Plus One student had attempted suicide after her mother took away her mobile phone over concerns about her screen time. She has since recovered from the critical condition. A video of Manoj administering CPR has gone viral, drawing widespread appreciation for the two officers.

The incident happened around 4.30 am on August 17, when Manoj and Jyothy were on night patrol near the Chadayamangalam KSRTC bus stand. The police station alerted them after a woman called saying her daughter was threatening to stab her with a knife. “At first, we thought it was a regular fight between a mother and daughter. We collected the caller’s details and contacted her. She was panicking and asked us to reach immediately. The girl had entered her room, locked the door and threatened to commit suicide,” says Jyothy, 56, a native of Chingeli in Kadakkal and an ex-Army man who has been serving as a Home Guard since 2010.

The woman shared her location on WhatsApp, and the officers immediately raced to the house in Ayoor, around 8 km away. The girl lived in the newly constructed single-storey house with her five-year-old sister and grandmother. Her mother, a divorcee who works as a nurse in Saudi Arabia, had returned home just three days earlier after learning that her daughter had been showing behavioural issues. “When we reached, they were waiting outside. The girl had locked herself inside a bedroom. We knocked, and she asked who was there. We identified ourselves as police officers and requested her to open the door. She agreed, and we waited,” Manoj recalls.

Two minutes later, they heard a sound from inside and sensed that something was wrong. They looked through a window but could not see anything because the room was dark and the curtains were drawn.

“It was a new house, but we had no other option. We broke the window glass and shone a torch inside. Inside, the girl was struggling while hanging. I thought of nothing else but my own children,” Manoj says.

The officers immediately ran inside and broke open the bedroom door. Manoj held the girl while Jyothy fetched a knife from the kitchen and cut the shawl she had used to hang herself. They laid her on the bed, but she was unresponsive.

“We knew she could not be saved unless CPR was given immediately. I had learned how to administer it years back,” Manoj says. He performed CPR for nearly eight minutes, taking only a brief break in between, until the girl regained consciousness. Meanwhile, Jyothy rubbed her legs to keep her warm. The officers then took her to a nearby hospital. “We did not have time to wait for an ambulance, so we took her in our jeep. I drove her to the hospital myself. From there, she was shifted in an ambulance to another private hospital in Anchal for better treatment. She is stable now,” Manoj says.

Manoj, who has 32 years of service, is due to retire in 10 months. He says he has been part of several rescue missions during his career, but this one was different. “This is something I never thought of. There was no time to be nervous or frightened. We just had to act fast. At one point, I thought I would collapse myself, but somehow we managed. The entire rescue took around 15 minutes. We are here to protect the lives of the public, and that is what we will do,” he says.

The officers have not yet visited the girl after the rescue, as they are waiting for her counselling sessions to be completed. “We don’t know how she will react when she sees us now,” Jyothy says.

Manoj has been receiving appreciation from different people, particularly the officers’ families. “We do take videos or photos whenever we can. Otherwise, there are chances that people may turn against us if something goes wrong,” Manoj says.

On Wednesday, the two officers were called to the Police Headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, where they received tokens of appreciation from the Director General of Police and the Additional Director General of Police.

Manoj lives with his wife Rajitha and children Aswathy, Sachin and Dhrona. Jyothy lives with his wife Sandhya and children Ananthu and Adith.