A 27-year-old New York police officer named Christian Campoverde has definitely earned the right to have Christian as his first name. Five days before Christmas, Officer Campoverde saved the life of a fellow man. And he did it simply by giving a hug.

On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio honoured him for going above and beyond the call of duty to save the life of a distraught man who was about to take a suicidal leap off the third floor balcony of Queens Center mall, People magazine reported.

Campoverde said he was off-duty and enjoying his time with his family at the mall when he saw and heard an apparently disturbed man mumbling that he wanted to kill himself.

The man pushed his way past shoppers on the escalator as he made his way to the third floor.

"I saw people's reactions, they were angry towards him," Campoverde told CBS New York. "Me and my wife look at it differently – we saw a man who needed help."

He said he immediately sensed that something was seriously wrong, and that he needed to do something.

Leaving his family behind, he followed the man.

"I need to calm him down, I need to connect to him. I don't know exactly what he's going through, but whatever he's going through, it's tough," he said.

The New York policeman said the agitated man already had one of his legs over the balcony railing and was about to jump to his death when he reached out and grabbed the man's waistband.

He then pulled him back on the floor and tried to calm him down. He said he was able to use the training he received when he joined the NYPD's Crisis Intervention Team. That training instructs police officers on how to recognise signs of mental illness and how to deal with them.

He said he tried to calm the man down, sensing that the man appeared to be suffering from depression and just needed someone to cheer him up.

"Is it OK if I give you a hug, do you want a hug?" he asked him, according to NYPD News.

The sobbing man answered "yes" as he allowed the police officer to wrap his arms around him.

The unidentified man was eventually taken in for evaluation at a hospital, CBS New York reported.