Assisted suicide the old-fashioned way

Haizhu Bridge is one of the oldest bridges in Guangzhou. It is made of cables and riveted steel. (Source: Flickr.com, March 08)

A passerby pushed a would-be suicide jumper off a bridge in Southern China because he was angry at the jumper's "selfish activity," CNN reported Saturday according to Chinese media reports.

My thoughts exactly.

OK. So let me get this straight: this guy was pissed off that the other was about to kill himself in a selfish way, so he pushes the other off the bridge, thus helping him (Mr. Suicide) commit the act that he (Mr. Passerby) is protesting.

Brilliant.

The "assisted" suicide attempt took place Thursday in the city of Guangzhou as Chen Fuchao threatened to jump off Haizhu Bridge, which has gained the reputation of "macabre" because of 11 jumpers since early April, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

Traffic was held up for nearly five hours and a crowd gathered as Chen sat on the bridge, threatening to jump, Xinhua reported.

Now, what's that about? What's up with "threatening" to jump? Threatening whom? I've never quite understood this. If you're going to jump, jump. If you don't want to jump, then what are you doing standing on the edge of a bridge? Call me cynical, but perhaps if the authorities and general public didn't rush to stop people from doing what they apparently want to do, there would be no such "threats."

Chen wanted to kill himself because he had 2 million yuan ($294,000) in debt after a failed construction project, Xinhua reported. Lian Jiansheng, 66, who was passing by the bridge, offered to talk Chen down. Police refused, but Lian broke through the police cordon and climbed to where Chen was sitting. Lian greeted Chen with a handshake, then pushed him off the bridge.

Classy.

WTF!

Chen fell 26 feet (8 meters) onto a partially-inflated emergency air cushion, damaging his spine and elbow in the fall, Xinhua reported. He is now recovering in a hospital.

Great. So now he's not only still alive and owing the $294K, but he's also crippled. If he couldn't come up with the money before, when he still had a spine, how is he going to get anything without one?

So I ask you, my friends, how is stopping him from killing himself helping him?

Unless someone is willing to pay his debt for him (and some appointments with a psychiatrist...and the meds...) that air cushion just made matters worse.

A photographer documented the sequence of events. The photographs show Lian, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and socks, saluting to the crowd after pushing Chen off, Xinhua reported.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lian told Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Well...he does have a point.

If Chen is threatening to kill himself vs. just jumping already, then he must have some demands in order not to go through with it. Right? This is the selfish part that Lian, and many others, object to in these cases.

What makes anyone think that he or she is so valuable and important that others would do anything to stop him or her from jumping to their deaths? If I were to decide to "check out" by jumping off a bridge or a building, wouldn't it be tremendously pretentious of me to assume that people would care so much that they would be willing to do whatever it takes to stop me from doing what I want to and came to do?

Yeah, yeah...I know it's more complicated than that...

Police took Lian away after the incident, Xinhua reported. It did not say whether he would face any charges.

Charges? This might be a stretch for some people, but given that he tried to help someone he found along the road, shouldn't he get a Good Samaritan award?

OK, seriously now. We don't know this guy Chen--his trials and tribulations, what led to them, his state of mind, medical history, nothing. So to be fair, we shouldn't judge him. Let's have some compassion.

But I still think this is one ridiculously funny story and one of the best representations of irony I've ever seen.

Sources: CNN, China's Xinhua news agency
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