A dedicated volunteer patrols a bridge in China ten times a day, reading the body language of walkers before intervening.
A suicide prevention volunteer in China has been dubbed the “Angel of Nanjing” after stopping 469 people from jumping off a bridge over the last 21 years.
Chen Si, 56, guards the Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province in eastern China.
Chen participates in chats with people who are loitering or walking aimlessly on the bridge in order to discourage them from jumping.
He has also pulled people back from the brink and helped to rescue some who have already jumped into the river.
He guards the bridge ten times a day, wearing a red volunteer uniform with “cherish life every day” written in Chinese on it, and has done so for more than two decades.
In 2000, Chen noticed a desperate-looking female wandering across the bridge.
Worried that she was in difficulty, he approached her and began conversing in an attempt to cheer her up. She had no money, but he bought her water, food, and a ticket home.
Chen stated that it was the first time he had pondered someone committing suicide by jumping from the bridge.
“I realised that these people could be saved,” he told me.
Chen has saved hundreds of individuals since September 2003, according to New Weekly.
He claims he can tell if someone is depressed based on their posture.
“People with an extreme internal struggle don’t have relaxed body movements, their bodies look heavy,” Chen told me.
“I want to tell these people that as long as you have breath, you have hope to start your life over,” according to him.
He once saved a woman who was about to leap after her spouse cheated on her.
He advised her: “If the sky falls, I’ll be your big brother and hold it up for you.”
Another time, he stopped a girl from jumping who had been accepted to university but couldn’t afford the tuition, raising more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) with friends to assist her.
“Over the years, I’ve realised that simply pulling someone back from the brink on the bridge doesn’t completely lift them out of their predicament,” remarked the actor.
Chen has used his savings to rent lodgings for persons he has persuaded not to leap, while personally covering all other costs.
His heartwarming narrative has since been adapted into a documentary, Angel of Nanjing.
“I saw him in the news about 20 years ago. “I didn’t expect him to still be saving lives,” one online observer remarked on Weibo.
“Giving those in despair hope and a chance to live, Chen is truly an angel,” another person said.
