100 years in Spokane: Police once again help rescue ‘Fighting Nell’

Police heard screams emanating from a downtown alley at 1:30 a.m.

When they investigated, they found Nellie Cook, known in police circles as “Fighting Nell,” suspended 20 feet above the pavement.

She was “clad only in her stocking and a diaphanous undergarment,” and her husband was in the second-story window, holding her by the wrists. He was attempting, in vain, to haul her back in to the window.

This was the result, said the husband, of a “family disagreement.” She had apparently become angry and tied her clothing in a bundle and tossed it into the alley. Then she tossed a sheet out of the window, “preparatory to jumping on it.” Her husband apparently grabbed her wrists before she could complete this aerial maneuver.

One officer stayed in the alley below, to catch her, and the other went upstairs and helped her husband pull her to safety.

This was, incredibly, not the first time Fighting Nell had been rescued from midair.

One of the officers said that, five years ago, he had rescued her from a similar predicament when she was found clinging to a third-story ledge at a hotel. She was “almost exhausted” when officers pulled her back into the room. She had been trying to escape from the hotel room, for undisclosed reasons.

“Hanging in midair is one of the best things that Fighting Nell does,” concluded one of the officers.