Sgt. Ashley Harkins, a former Saint Michael's softball student-athlete now working as a Connecticut state trooper, risked her life to save a woman from falling 100 feet off a bridge.
For her bravery, she is receiving the NCAA Award of Valor, which is presented to a coach, administrator or current or former NCAA student-athlete who, when confronted with a situation involving personal danger, averted or minimized potential disaster by courageous action or noteworthy bravery. She will receive the award at the NCAA Convention in January in Nashville, Tennessee.
In November 2023, Harkins was just ending a shift. She ended up staying at work later than usual when a call came in reporting a suicidal woman on a bridge.
When she arrived on the scene, she saw a woman in her mid-60s sitting on a 5-inch ledge. She had been there about three hours, with the chilly November wind whipping around her.
Harkins looked up at the 10-foot safety fence separating her from the woman. Past the fence, Harkins saw the drop to the water was around 100 feet. If Harkins made it over the fence, her entire foot would not even fit on the concrete edge. She had no safety ropes or equipment.
"Part of me thought, 'Where am I gonna go? If I get over this fence, where am I gonna go?'" she recalled. "But I made the decision to go."
"Growing up, I was best described probably as an athlete," Harkins said. "If you named a sport, I wouldn't necessarily play it in an organized fashion, but I would play it with my best friends down the road. It didn't matter what it was."
Harkins' competitive drive pushed her to excel in every sport she played.
"Everything I did, I did to 110% full throttle. There really wasn't a pause button. I know at one point I was playing three different soccer leagues at the exact same time, and I remember my mom said never again. We're not ever doing this again. This is too much."
When it came time to choose a college, she picked Saint Michael's in her hometown of Colchester, Vermont. She knew she would have the opportunity to play softball, a priority for her.
"I liked the school. I liked the coach. I had a pretty good chance of being able to play there," she said. "I loved how close it was to where I grew up. There were just a lot of things about it."
Ashley Harkins described her time at Saint Michael's as "amazing." "I wouldn't do anything different. Even if I had the option, I wouldn't change any of it," she said. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Harkins)
She stepped onto campus as a freshman in 2005, and she soon began making her mark. Harkins, humble by nature, would never boast about her success. Yet her statistics speak for themselves.
With a .426 batting average her senior year, Harkins still holds school records for hits, runs, doubles and triples in a season and accomplished the rare feat of making the All-Northeast-10 Conference first team at two different positions — shortstop and center field — during her playing career. In 2023, Harkins was inducted into the Saint Michael's Athletic Hall of Fame.
"I ended up doing some really phenomenal things in my own personal career a lot better than I had ever thought or anticipated," she said.
Despite her on-field success, her favorite collegiate memories came from the people she met on campus.
"My teammates were phenomenal. I loved them. They were literally a family to me."
Harkins and her teammates traveled in a pack everywhere they went. Every night after practice, her teammates would eat dinner together and then spend their nights hanging out together. They would spend weekends together. Harkins said the team environment evolved into a family. If she could choose one word about her experience, she said she would choose "amazing."
"I wouldn't do anything different. I loved my experience at St. Mike's. I loved the school. I loved my teammates, the memories that I made there. I wouldn't have changed any of it. Even if I had the option, I wouldn't change any of it," she said.
Harkins majored in biology with aspirations of becoming a doctor. After she graduated, she became a paramedic and met several people in law enforcement. Through those conversations, she began to see herself in that field.
When a friend applied to become a state trooper and encouraged Harkins to apply, too, Harkins said she had doubts but ultimately went for it.
"I was like, 'There's no way I'm ever going to get picked. I'm not going to get in,'" she recalled. "I got picked on my first application process."
Currently, Harkins serves in Westbrook, Connecticut. Her work as a state trooper has, in a lot of ways, mirrored her experience as a student-athlete.
"It is very much like a family. As troopers, we talk about wingmen. They're the people that you work with closely on a day-to-day basis, on the patrol next to you," she said. "That was very much like your teammates on a softball team.
"I got really lucky in the troop that I went to. Everyone was great. They were there to help you. (My colleagues) were there in that helpful leadership role that I feel like you often get a lot playing sports and especially that I had playing collegiate sports."
It was this leadership and team camaraderie that empowered Harkins that day on the bridge. Although she had not been trained for this specific moment, Harkins said she turned to her instincts.
"I don't want to say no training for a situation like that, but it's not characteristic training. Nobody says, 'If you have somebody on the wrong side of a bridge, this is what you're going to do,'" she said. "But I wasn't really thinking. My biggest thing was how am I gonna get over this fence and then where am I gonna go once I'm there?"
Still, she decided to climb the 10-foot fence with no safety equipment or ropes holding her in place.
"When I got to the top of that fence, it was high, very high, and all that's below you is water. And it was a very narrow ledge on the side that she was sitting on."
A colleague, Sgt. Matthew Belz, talked to the woman while Harkins descended the other side to the narrow ledge, scooted a few feet toward the woman and then maneuvered to have one arm and one leg on each side of her.
Harkins gripped the fence and secured the woman to the fence with her body to keep her from falling. Harkins helped place the woman's foot on her thigh for leverage while she grasped the fence with one hand.
"When she climbed back, I think that was probably the scariest moment for me because she let go with her foot, and I was afraid she was gonna fall. So I let go with one hand, and I was in a squat holding on with one hand trying to boost her foot up and over."
The woman regained her footing as Harkins pushed her up by her foot so she could climb the fence to waiting officers.
"I didn't think about being scared," Harkins told the local news after the incident. "I just thought about what we need to do and how we (could) accomplish it."
Yet Harkins admits upon reflection the danger of the situation.
"I thought about after like, 'Wow, that could have been bad. That could have been bad,'" she said.
There weren't many situations in life that could have prepared Harkins for that emergency response, yet she said her sport-first mentality since childhood played a role.
"I would say my athleticism and my drive to constantly stay fit, which I would say goes all the way back to my entire life, in every sport I ever played, definitely helped me that day," she said.
After the incident, she received an outpouring of support for her bravery.
"A lot of people knew and started to reach out to me and they're like, 'You're a badass, you did that, I can't believe you, so proud of you,'" she recalled. "And then as the video was released, the outpouring of support that I had from current troopers, retired troopers, family, friends, my softball teammates, people from St. Mike's. People I hadn't heard from for years were reaching out and saying very kind things to me."
Harkins was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Heroism, which recognizes individuals for acts of extraordinary bravery. Now, the NCAA is recognizing Harkins with the Valor Award, which serves as another validation of the bravery the former student-athlete exhibited that day.
"My biggest thing was trying to figure out how or why I was getting this award. I quickly learned that it was Josh Kessler at Saint Michael's College and Meggan Roberge (Dulude), also a teammate of mine, that had been part of putting me in for that," she said. "I was speechless. I was told that I was getting it, and I was shocked."
Ultimately, Harkins recognizes that her bravery fell into the job description of being a state trooper.
"I had to help somebody. I did my job that day. To me, I don't really think I did anything that spectacular. I feel like I did what anybody should have done to help somebody in their time of need."
