A man was about to jump
from the 10th story of LUYM building
in Praridel Street, Cebu City
on January 29, 2018
in an attempt to kill himself.
But rescuers and negotiators
fortunately,
was able to change his mind
and did not pursue his plan
to end his life.
But the incident went on
for about 2 hours or more
with crowds gathering
to witness the incident.
Traffic in the area was rerouted
causing headaches to commuters.
The man was seen standing
on the ledge of the building
ready to jump any moment
while negotiators,
who were on the same floor,
were doing their job.
On the ground below,
fire truck ladder was raised
few meters below the man
with two rescuers on board
who also tried to talk him out
of the situation.
as time passed by,
and were growing impatient.
One thing shocked me though.
From time to time,
I heard the rudeness
and the insensitivity of few people
around me.
They said the guy
was just making a scene
and just wanted to be famous,
and that he never really
wanted to jump off
because he could have done it
right away
without creating a huge crowd,
and worst I heard was
that they were already impatient
and wasting much time watching him up there
causing neck pain already
so they wanted him to jump off
to end the drama.
I couldn't believe all I heard,
that those people had no empathy whatsoever,
cruel and very insensitive.
But in my case,
I prayed many times
during the whole time
while taking footages with my smartphone
because I never wished to capture him
jumping off the ledge
and ending on the ground
hundreds of feet below
with broken bones and fractured
or crushed skull,
and internal and external bleeding,
with blood all over the place.
That would mean trauma for me
for the rest of my life!
Thank God for all time to come
that the man was convinced
to stop his plan to die
and the suicide attempt
was successfully intervened.
It was a great job
by the negotiators and rescuers
of Cebu City, Philippines.