TRENTON -- A city police officer saved a distraught man from falling to his death from an eighth-floor apartment Sunday morning.

The officer's body camera was recording as the man dangled from a window in the Trent Center high-rise apartments on Greenwood Avenue.

The rookie officer, Freddy Jimenez, was there because the man's wife had just died of natural causes, police said.

The distraught man went to another room and climbed out of a window and was hanging by his fingertips, police said. The apartments do not have balconies.

When Jimenez entered the room, all that was visible was the man's knuckles. The man said to himself, in distress, "Do it, do it, do it."

Jimenez grabbed for the man, called for backup - he was the only officer in the apartment - and started talking to him.

"Sir, please don't! Sir hang on!' Jimenez said. "I am here to help you - please!"

The man then asked the officer to grab his leg and said, "I don't want to die."

"I don't want you to die," Jimenez responded.

"I got you, I got your leg," Jimenez said as he struggled to haul the man inside.

Jimenez then collapsed to the floor with the man and reported on his radio that the man was safe - all before backup arrived.

A police spokesman said Jimenez's heroic actions speak for themselves on the video, which the department made public Tuesday after news spread among officers about how dramatic it was.

Jimenez graduated from the police academy in October 2016.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.