A TEENAGE girl on her way to a birthday party helped talk a vulnerable woman out of jumping into the River Ouse.

Manor School student Liz Cooper, 14, from Knapton, was walking with her parents near North Street, when they saw the 45-year-old woman climbing over the barrier towards the river, at about 7pm on Friday.

Bev Cooper, Liz’s mother, said: “She said ‘nobody loves me, I’m going over’.

“Liz was amazing. She said ‘you don’t want me or my little sister to see you go over, do you?’. The woman was clearly going through such a bad time. Then Liz sat and talked to her about swimming and music and asked about her family. She just had the presence of mind to do that.”

Liz and her father Mike, whose birthday they were going out to celebrate, sat on a bench with the woman and tried to contact her partner on her mobile phone while Bev phoned the police.

Liz said: “She wouldn’t come down for my mum or her friend and I said if she didn’t get down I would start crying and she said ‘don’t do that you remind me of my daughter’.

“I was just acting on instinct to get her away and distract her. It just came naturally to try and distract her from whatever she was thinking about that was making her want to jump. When we sat down she started talking and seemed fine. She’d had a bit to drink but seemed cheerful enough and kept telling me I had hair like her daughter.”

A family friend who was walking with the Coopers, said: “She was so calm it was amazing, and it gave her mum chance to phone the police.

“She was fantastic absolutely fantastic. She was so calm, so grown up. She was just amazing absolutely amazing.”

Bev said: “It was unbelievable. I think teenagers get such a bad press so it would be great for her to have some recognition.

“She amazed me. Me and her father just stood there and she just took charge and really, really deserves some credit. She had the presence of mind to keep calm. I’m very proud of her. I think it shows there’s nothing really to worry about in the world to do if we have kids around like that, because she’s got a lot of friends who are similar. I was absolutely amazed to listen to her speaking because she just took control of the situation. The lady even said to me ‘your daughter is fantastic, you must be very proud of her’.”

Liz said: “I’m aware of how dangerous the rivers can be, you hear stories about it. I have heard stories recently about young people falling in, especially after having a drink.

“She was nice lady. We found something she was interested in and kept her talking and distracted her from what’s going on in her head. It’s overwhelming to think what’s happened, it’s hard to comprehend. We were debating whether to go to Nando’s that night, and if we hadn’t, what would have happened?”

A North Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said: “The public spirited and caring actions of the girl who talked the lady down from the bridge are commendable. She acted selflessly in what must have been a very distressing situation for everyone involved.”