A COMMUTER driving home from work climbed up to a motorway bridge to talk down a woman threatening to jump.

Hannah Howarth, from Over Hulton, said she was shaking as she approached the woman on foot after pulling up on the hard shoulder.

She and another woman, Anne Williams, from Wigan, spent between 10 and 15 minutes trying to persuade the 24-year-old woman not to kill herself.

Miss Howarth said it seemed like an “age” before the woman turned round and stepped away from the edge.

The woman had climbed over a barrier on a bridge over the northbound carriageway of the M61 near the Swinton interchange at about 5.30pm on Monday.

Miss Howarth, aged 25, was driving back to Over Hulton from Salford where she works as a sales director.

She said: “I saw a dark outline on the bridge ahead.

“I looked up and saw the traffic was building up and people were stopping and getting out of their cars.

“Nobody was trying to help her at this point so I pulled on to the hard shoulder and went up to the bridge with another lady.”

On how the two women prompted her to change her mind, she said: “We were just saying, ‘don’t do it, we don’t want you to die and there are people who can help you’.

"At first she was staring down below her and crying and she looked distressed.

“We said, ‘think of your mum and speak to your family about everything that is going on.

“Eventually she looked at us and after what seemed like an age she finally got down.”

Miss Howarth said she gave the woman a “big hug” when she had climbed down, before leaving the matter to the emergency services.

The police confirmed they had attended and that the incident was resolved by 6pm.

It is believed the woman was taken to hospital as a precaution.

Miss Howarth added: “As I was walking up I was thinking ‘please do not jump’.

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“I couldn’t imagine seeing someone falling like that. I was shaking.

“I would not have been able to live with myself had I driven on and found out later that she had jumped.

“My partner and my mum have said, ‘well done’ to me.

“I think they were a little shocked at what I had gone through.”