About three weeks ago, my wife, my daughter and I were heading to a nearby coffee shop/bookstore. I was driving. As we headed over an overpass spanning a stretch of the interstate, I saw a guy climbing the railing, clearly getting ready to jump. The drop is, I dunno, 35 feet, maybe? So it's unclear as to whether he would have died. Then again, it was just before rush hour, traffic was going at a pretty good clip, so he very well could have hit a car, and a lot of people could have been very hurt. Anyhow, as soon as I saw this, I yelled "oh shit," put the car into park without giving any warning to my wife or the drivers behind me, jumped out of the car and... ambled over to the guy, who had one leg over the rail. You don't really want to run towards a guy in that position. Asked him how he was doing, if he needed any help. He's clearly homeless, smells like booze, crying. Starts talking about how he's fucked his life up, how nobody cares about him, how he just wants to die. I try telling him how I care about him at that moment, he just keeps going on about how I don't even know him. Gets the other leg over the rail, I tell him to look at me, which thankfully he does. Gives me some time and his attention span, I start talking about how we all kind of stumble through life, how all of us are fuckups. He's not really buying it, but he's not jumping yet, so that's okay. I don't want him to get any further, but I also don't want to try and grab him by myself and get pulled over the side or something. What the hell are you supposed to say to get somebody to not jump? Meanwhile, a bus driver had pulled over across the street and had clearly called 911 on his cell. I was surreptitiously motioning for him to come over, and when he got of the phone, he came up behind the guy. Traffic is stopped on I-5, which is good, but people are starting to gawk, which is bad. A police car is pulled up in front of traffic, and officer helpful gets on that big, blaring loudspeaker and squawks something completely incomprehensible at us. Sure sounds threatening though, thanks. At this point, the guy on the railing starts shifting his weight. So without really giving any warning, and in blessed conjunction with bus driver, I grab one arm, he grabs another, I say something trite like "I'm just gonna help you back over, okay?" and we drag him back to the sidewalk. He immediately starts screaming and crying "no no no" and this sheriff, a lady, swoops out of nowhere, goes, "good, now get him on the ground," kicks the back of his knees out and presses him face first into the ground, where's he's handcuffed. You can imagine how off-putting this was to me, who just spouted all this jive about how I cared about him and that he was going to be okay. The best I could do was rub his back as he was surrounded by law enforcement. I looked around and realized we were ringed by cop cars. Crazy. You know what the hell of it is? I don't really feel good about any of it. This guy, he was in bad shape, physically and emotionally and financially. And he was miserable after we pulled him back over. Who's to say I didn't doom him to another few days, weeks, months or years of abject misery? As a homeless guy, he has precious few choices that he can make for himself. Maybe he'd decided that enough was enough, and this was his final act of empowerment. And then some bougey family guy swoops out of nowhere acting like a goddamn hero and drags him away from his last bid at freedom from misery. Family guy gets to go home and feel Important, but this guy has to spend the night in inpatient, then go back onto the streets and back to hard living and desperate choices. Stop a guy from killing himself, but then take no ownership in the betterment of his life after that. Seems pretty crass to me .How am I supposed to feel about this? I certainly don't feel like I did something great. My wife tells me that the way I can think about it is that even if he did truly want to die, and even if that would have saved him, he could easily have taken out some innocent driver in the process, maybe some passengers. So there's that, I guess.
So I dated a girl whose entire family were psychoanalysts. Three of them worked in public health in Seattle. Here's how it works: 1) Homeless person demonstrates that they are a threat to themselves 2) Homeless person is taken into custody (NOT arrested) where they are ruled for short term competency 3) Court reviews evidence to determine if there is enough to qualify the person for a 48 hour hold (in california it's 72 - the infamous 5150\) 4) Person is remanded to a hospital for observation, testing, and short term treatment 5) IF (big if) the person is judged to be a long-term threat to their own health, and IF (bigger if) said person can be convinced to receive treatment, THEN person becomes an inpatient at a public health hospital where they are treated for their condition and released when either they complete treatment, choose to discontinue treatment or fail to comply with treatment. Cops don't take a shine to crazy people because they're unpredictable and often spit and bite and claw and throw poop and stuff. There was a guy who was one of my girlfriend's dad's patients who blocked off 2nd avenue for an hour with an f'ing sword. That doesn't mean they aren't getting them help, it just means they aren't being tender about it. You did the right thing. You saved a life. That's not nothing.
First of all, nice work. You did the right thing and had a clear enough head to make all the appropriate choices in an inappropriate situation. My guess is that if he had wanted to do it, he would have. Period. He needed you and you were there to "save" him. Some people just want to know that they are worth saving. If you are really concerned about him, perhaps you could reach out to the police dept and find out who he was and how, if at all, you could help. They may not be able to give that info, but it may also be public information if he committed a crime. Then, buy the guy lunch, listen to him. My guess is that you'll get as much, if not more, out of the experience than he will. Again, nice work!