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Truckers Help Police Prevent a Michigan Man’s Suicide
At about 1 AM Tuesday, the Michigan State Police were told that a person was threatening suicide. The unnamed man was perched on a bridge over I-696, outside of Detroit, as traffic sped beneath him. The police closed that section of the interstate and tried to talk the man out of jumping.
While they were chatting, they asked 13 semi-truck drivers passing through to see if they could lend a hand. The MSP let the drivers through the barricades and asked them to park their semis side by side underneath the overpass. The wall of trucks would cut any jumper’s fall enough that he could walk away healthy, outside of a few bruises.
After the man continued speaking with police for a few hours, he agreed to be transported to a local hospital for evaluation.
This photo does show the work troopers and local officers do to serve the public. But also in that photo is a man struggling with the decision to take his own life. Please remember help is available through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. pic.twitter.com/RBAlCIXT1o
— MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) April 24, 2018
Thanks to the Michigan State Police and 13 truckers for saving a man’s life.
Published in General
@davecarter would be proud!
Truckers for America. Inspiring. We never know when we will be called upon to do a unique service for God, and the form of that service.
Thanks, Jon, for the inspiring story.
Thanks for sharing Jon.
I really like this story. Sometimes it feels as though we human beings have become completely indifferent to each other’s emotional or physical suffering. I am as happy about the response I’m seeing on the Internet to this story as I am about the story itself.
I didn’t realize Jon had posted this story given that that post authors have itty bitty pictures now instead of the “right sized” pictures in the comments. (I know, I know, I could have read his title, but I rely more on pictures. I am simple minded.) Please restore the pictures for Posts to their proper size.
Finally! Gary and I agree on something!!
I read this somewhere last night, and I felt so happy that random people on the highway were quite willing to interrupt their busy day to help some poor stranger who had put himself in peril. That is a lovely thing to do, and we should trumpet it from the mountaintops!
That I am simple minded or that you don’t like the small pictures?
Indeed! Good for them. Years ago, radio host Neal Boortz (Atlanta) got tired of traffic having to sit for hours while someone sat on a bridge contemplating suicide. He suggested truckers park under the would-be jumper, and then someone push him off the bridge into the waiting arms of angry truckers. This was a much more humane approach, obviously,…but I’m gratified that professional drivers were willing to do what was necessary to help.
Their busy day had already been interrupted involuntarily by the stranger who seems to have caused the entire highway to be shut down. But it was a nice thing for the truckers to do while they were waiting for the highway to be reopened.
I wonder if the MSP gave the drivers the option of either parking under the bridge or continuing their journey.
Does it have to be one or the other?
Well, now that you mention it, there are two things we agree on! ;-)
It was 1 a.m. It was a man’s life. Perhaps those truckers understood what it is like to feel alone, despondent, afraid.
I’ve been on commuter trains and subways where the thing stops and people start grousing. Then they announce that there has been a fatality and the complainers shut up.
I see the advantage of the small picture – it helps posts rise or fall based on headline rather than headshot.
[Edited for context]
Nice story, and a happy ending. Hopefully this individual gets the help he needs.
Whole new meaning to ” we got ourselves a convoy!” Well played .