PROVIDENCE — The woman clutched one knife against her throat and held another at her abdomen. She suddenly showed signs that she was serious about taking her own life.

That was the scene shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday when police officers were summoned to a house on Eddy Street and had to figure out how to deal with the situation.

Officers had quietly surrounded the woman while they negotiated with her for a half-hour. Suddenly seeing her condition apparently change for the worse, they zapped her twice with a shock-producing device, pounced on her and wrestled away the one knife she still gripped.

They demonstrated “performance of the highest tradition of the Providence Police Department, saving a life,” a pleased Col. Dean M. Esserman, police chief, said on Monday evening.

“The restraint and discipline they showed once again does the Providence Police Department proud,” he said, adding that it had been the second time the Providence police had saved a life by using “non-lethal means.”

Patrolman Omar Proctor got there first, and found a 17-year-old boy, of that address, who said his mother was inside holding “long knives” against her body “in a threatening manner.”

Proctor entered and found his mother on a living room couch holding knives whose length he estimated at 8 and 9 inches. He was joined by Patrolman Greg Daniels, who was armed with a Taser, a non-lethal, electrical device.

The pair were soon joined by Patrolman Cliff Torres, Sgt. Ed Ryan and Lt. Gerald E. DeLomba, who talked to the woman for a half-hour, trying to persuade her to drop the knives and accept help.

“Soon after, the woman’s tone, appearance, and behavior started to worsen,” the police said in a news release. “She was making a stabbing motion towards her body with one knife and making marks on her neck with the other.”

DeLomba told Daniels to use the Taser. The woman dropped to the floor, and the knife in her right hand fell away.

But she still gripped the other knife. Daniels shocked her again.

“She held it rigidly,” Esserman recounted. “The lieutenant grabbed her arm and put himself between her and the knife so she couldn’t hurt herself, and wrestled it out of her hand.”

She was taken to the Providence Center for mental evaluation. Esserman said he did not know of her condition.

He said no charges would be pressed. “We’re in the business of saving lives,” he said.

The police chief said that the department handled a similar situation on Warrington Avenue five years ago when Patrolman William Hutchinson used another non-lethal device, a beanbag gun, which essentially knocks the wind out of people but does not inflict injury.

In that case, Esserman said, Hutchinson had been confronted by a man holding knives to his body in a threatening manner and telling the police to “just shoot him.”

He was captured unharmed.

“The deployment of the less-than-lethal weapon saved someone’s life in both incidents and the officers should be commended for their actions,” said Maj. Hugh Clements, who was in charge at the Warrington Avenue incident.

tmorgan@projo.com