Out my office window I can see a guy standing on the edge of a pedestrian walkway over Sturdee Street, threatening to jump. He has been gesticulating wildly, and the police have closed the road off. Traffic is a mess.
He’s been there a while now. It’s a strange place to plan to jump, because it’s actually not that high up, and his chances of surviving would be reasonably good. But his chances of being horribly injured and living the rest of his life as a vegetable would be reasonably high.
The police are trying to talk him down, but he’s been up there a couple of hours now.
My guess is he won’t jump, but I’ll keep you posted.
Update 11:47am: He's still there, though the police are on the walkway too and are quite close. They're obviously having a chat. He's not waving his arms much. I expect they'll wear him out soon.
Update 12:17pm: Still there. Every time I look it seems the police have taken a step closer. Getting boring now. This guy has no sense of theatre. They are so close they could almost reach out and grab him.
A workmate asks a good question: why don't they sneak up and put a bouncy castle underneath him? He's facing the cops, not the road, and wouldn't notice.
Maybe the police need a flatdeck truck covered with mattresses for such events. It could be on standby...
Update 12:21pm: Finally he gave up, and the police now have him. Back to work, people!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
4 comments:
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I can see what appears to be some guy and his little son gawping from a convenient viewpoint slightly down the road.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they'll buy an icecream, take a few photos? Why not make a day of it?
I would think that most people who are so distressed as to contemplate or threaten suicide "plan to jump" in any real sense. I think that, when someone's at that point, there's not a lot of practical reasoning going on.
ReplyDeleteAnd Rich, yes, turning it into some kind of spectacle for a child ("Shall we go the zoo and see the animals? Or just stay right here and view someone's exteme anguish?") is inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, this is worse: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/3240618/DJ-played-Jump-as-woman-mulled-suicide
Oh, and in my first comment, please replace the third word ("think") with "doubt". Um, makes slightly more sense if you read it that way.
ReplyDeleteAnd apologies for the misguided URL in the first comment. It's been a while. I'm assured that the one to which this comment is linked makes some kind of interwebby sense.