A suicide attempt last week in Nanjing has been happily averted after officers from a dedicated garrison were able to pluck a man to safety following his jump from the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge into the chilly waters 70 metres below.
The incident occurred on 3 February, when the unnamed man became the latest to try to take his own life at the world’s number 1 suicide location that is the bridge in Nanjing.
It was at 15:05 that troops from Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Emergency Rescue (南京市公安局水上分局长江大桥应急救生) received the call from 110; someone had jumped from the bridge.
The troops rushed to the scene by speedboat and arrived in the waters’ vicinity within 2 minutes. A quick search and the officers had found the man, floating on his back in the water and partially comatose.
After bringing the boat in close, one of the officers was able to hook onto the man’s coat using the garrison’s dedicated life-saving pole and drag him the stern, where everyone joined forces to pull the man on to the boat.
Once on board, the man’s eyes remained closed, his face pale, moaning in a state of confusion. Returning to shore as quickly as possible, and following immediate transfer to hospital for emergency treatment, the man’s vital signs returned to normal, reports the Yangtze Evening News.
Nanjing’s Water Public Security Bureau set up the emergency rescue garrison in November of 2013, following the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge’s rise to notoriety. By 2006, there had been over 2,000 suicides made by people jumping off the bridge’s deck, some 70 metres above the river. With this, the bridge had taken the title as world’s top suicide location from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA.
None of the 2,000 plus survived. Most died on impact with the water. Others succumbed to internal organ failure and the remainder drowned.
This unenviable record was broken by the newly-established garrison in April of 2014, with the successful rescue of a woman who had jumped from the bridge, thus ending its “zero survival” (零生还) status.
The rescue garrison lives by its “Golden 5 Minute” philosophy; 1 minute to get to its boat, 3 minutes to travel to the scene and 1 minute to extract the victim from the water.
Last week’s rescue marked the eighth person to have been saved following their suicide attempt. The garrison has also prevented a further 53 cases of general drowning since its formation.
