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A BRAVE milk truck driver yesterday told how he stopped a girl jumping off a motorway bridge.

John Lapsley, 38, pulled over his Graham’s dairy lorry and risked his own safety after spotting the teenager on a parapet.

He said: “It was very early in the morning and pitch black. But I could just make out what looked like a figure on a bridge.

“I became aware it was a very young-looking girl standing on a tiny ledge. She was shaking and swaying back and forward.

“I parked my lorry on the hard shoulder with the hazard lights on.

“It was extremely windy and I remember thinking ‘If she sneezes, she’ll go over’.

“She was wailing that she couldn’t take things any more and my heart went out to her. I said she could hold on to my hand if she wanted. She eventually stuck her hand out and I was able to grab her and pull her gently to safety.

“It was a great relief. She just collapsed and cried her eyes out.

“The police arrived and were fantastic with her.

“They told me afterwards that she had been taken to hospital and was being looked after.”

The girl, aged 16, whose identity the Record are not revealing, is from Lanarkshire.

She had taken a large quantity of pills before walking along the hard shoulder to the bridge over the M8 at the Baillieston interchange on the outskirts of Glasgow.

Former soldier John, of Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire, added: “I wasn’t even meant to be working. Someone phoned in sick and my boss asked me if I could do it.

“It’s funny how fate works and how circumstances led to me noticing her in the darkness.

“You realise that it’s someone’s child and try to do your bit.”