Suicide attempt which luckily did not take place

Two days ago, from the comfort of my office’s balcony, I witnessed the most frightening of desperate shows in my life: a suicide attempt. A 26-year old man climbed up a crane inside a construction site and said he was going to jump to his death.   

 These are some photos of the construction site and the crane which I first took with my mobile phone: 

 

 

Then, as police arrived (I couldn’t leave the office, and from my balcony, it was impossible to take pictures of the crowd and police that were on the other side), I went inside to take the camera. The rest of the photos below were taken with a Canon EOS 550D. 

 

The footage of him on top of the crane ended up on all national TV channels; so I believe everyone sort of held their breath for couple of hours. This is not the first time such a thing takes place, but witnessing it firsthand, was shocking. I still remember how I was trembling with fear.  

 

 

He was raised in an orphanage until the age of 16, which is the maximum age orphanages shelter children. After that age, he was given a miserable room in a dorm of a secondary school, given the local or central government’s lack of policies and strategies of providing them with real shelters, or programs for temporary subvention of rent. Basically, they are all raised to become criminals since there is little to no opportunity of making a living otherwise.  

 

 

Recently, he was involved in a criminal case which held him as the main suspect on theft charges. He claimed that he was not guilty, although the trial is still ongoing. I guess this was the trigger that forced him take the ultimate suicide decision. Police however, managed to convince him to climb down. The conversation between him and police was carried out mostly on the phone, but there were times when they were also shouting at each-other – I could hear the shouts from the distance I was taking the photos.  The drone flying above him in the photo below, belonged to one of the TV channels that was airing it live.

 

I don’t have pictures of him after this moment, but he made it to the ground safe. What happens with him next, I don’t know. For now, I am just happy he didn’t kill himself in the most gruesome manner. And I hope he finds the strength to carry on. I wished there were some other ways I (or anyone else) helped him directly, but there are none so far. Let’s hope for the best.