Kylee will never forget the day she met a woman near the cliff.

Content warning: This article deals with suicidal ideation and domestic violence.

It was 1997. A clear summer's day in early December.

Kylee Dennis was called to a cliff-top spot, where a young woman appeared to be distressed. Kylee and her team had been tasked with trying to save this woman's life. Police Rescue services were on standby metres away. Psychologists were also on-call if needed.

"She was just sitting there, contemplating everything and a concerned neighbour had called the police. We turned up and myself and the other negotiators were harnessed up for safety. We got over the fence and sat with her as close as we possibly could, the ocean and rocks below," Kylee tells Mamamia.

"The view was beautiful that day and we sat there staring out into the sky. The woman told me that everything about her life was falling apart. We sat together, and I let her speak and reflect on what she was feeling."

Listening is one of the hardest things we can do. But in this instance, Kylee's empathy and kind words helped this woman feel less alone. Kylee saved a life that day.

In her 14 years in the NSW Police Force, there were countless high-risk situations that Kylee found herself in as a police crisis negotiator. 

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It was an incident when she was 13 years old that made Kylee interested in joining the police force.

"When I was 13, there was a shooting that happened on my home's doorstep. We lived in this small country town where my dad worked as a police officer and there had been a domestic violence situation at a neighbour's place. 

"The ex-husband had returned to the home and he had fired three shots. His estranged wife had been shot running up to our doorstep in an attempt to run away from him," explains Kylee.

"She came up onto our home's little wooden porch. That was domestic violence at its high end. I watched all the cops arrive on the scene, come together and work at arresting the offender, and looking after the victim. There was such a sense of camaraderie, and it cemented in me that it was exactly what I wanted to do."

Watch: domestic and family violence survivors tell their stories. Post continues below.

In 1989, Kylee joined the cops and for 14 years she worked with the NSW Police Force. She had training and experience as an intelligence officer, a detective and adult sexual assault investigator, a child protection specialist and more. 

But there's one role that is especially fascinating — being a crisis negotiator.

It's a part-time role that Kylee did for around six years, alongside being a full-time detective.

"We would have our real jobs, which I was a detective, and then we would be on call once every six weeks for a period of seven 24-hour days. We would get a vehicle, we had a pager, and then you would ring police radio and find out where the location was where you had to go."

Some jobs were pre-planned, such as a high-risk warrant. Most were sudden crisis situations.

"If it was a crisis situation, it would be lights and sirens to get to that location. Once we got there our team of four would get together and we'd be given specific roles to do in that team. My role was often to ensure the equipment was there — like a megaphone or a karaoke machine (which was used to communicate with offenders where there had to be distance for safety reasons). I would also gather intel."

The training for dealing with those high-pressure situations was equally intense.

"Before the Sydney Harbour Bridge became a tourist site, the police would take us up there. We had no gear attached to us, we weren't hooked onto anything. There were also little open gaps while walking across the top part of the Bridge, and so you'd make sure you were stepping over the gaps and not dropping down to the cars," says Kylee.

Kylee Dennis was in the force for over a decade. Image: Supplied.

"People are intrinsically petrified of heights. Your mouth goes dry, you start to think, 'I could die, I'm going to fall off this thing.' Fear of heights changes the way you speak and your language. We never want to show fear to the people we're speaking with in crisis situations, so they'd train the fear out of you."

There's another experience on the job that has stuck with Kylee.

"We were going to North Sydney for a crisis negotiation situation, as an offender had taken his girlfriend hostage in a bedroom. He was armed with multiple knives."

"Negotiators would talk to him through the bedroom door and they actually wrote notes on the wall of the home's hallway so that other police officers could be across what the negotiator was thinking about the situation. We had psychologists turn up and we set them up in the kitchen. They would be there in an effort to help," says Kylee.

"That situation took 10 hours for negotiators to resolve, and fortunately it was a peaceful resolution where the girlfriend was unharmed physically and the offender was taken into police custody."

There was another instance where Kylee was negotiating with an offender to get off the roof, after he'd tried to evade arrest. 

"It was quite funny because he was being a bit of a naughty boy. He wouldn't come down. So the only way I got him down was talking to him. I decided to light a cigarette for myself, as I was a smoker at the time. He asked for one, and I said, 'Only if you come down.' So he came down and he was arrested. But I gave him a cigarette still. I'd promised it after all."

For Kylee, she feels grateful that she was never involved in a crisis negotiation situation that had "a bad ending". That's not to say it doesn't happen, particularly given the high-stakes nature of many of the scenes police attend.

"There was a lot of domestic violence, also murder, high-risk warrants, hostage situations, suicide interventions, kidnappings, extortion, risks with firearms. It was everything you could think of."

Kylee Dennis today. Image: Supplied.

Ultimately, the decision to leave the police force came down to a lack of permanent part-time work available during Kylee's time. By this point, she was married, a mum of two and she needed more flexibility. But she reflects fondly on her experience with the cops, saying it was a wonderful team and "well-oiled machine".

"Negotiators are magical human beings because they are there for the purpose of ensuring a peaceful resolution in a crisis situation."

She is now the Founder of Two Face Investigations, where she uncovers whether her clients have been victims of romance scams. 

"When you're in the force, you are there to help the community and add value. Being a negotiator and having been able to save someone who was at risk of suicide — that's wonderful to find a peaceful resolution. It's a purposeful job."

If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner. If you're based in Australia, 24-hour support is available through Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Mamamia is a charity partner of RizeUp Australia, a national organisation that helps women, children and families move on after the devastation of domestic and family violence. Their mission is to deliver life-changing and practical support to these families when they need it most. If you would like to support their mission you can donate here. 

Feature Image: Supplied/AAP.