I think I saved someone’s life this morning.<\/p>\n
I was driving into work – and running a little late, if truth be told – and was just crossing the bridge when I saw a guy standing up on the ledge of the bridge supports holding onto the lamp post.<\/p>\n
Below him, at a fatal distance, were the railroad tracks.<\/p>\n
I quickly pulled into the parking lot of my building, got out, and quickly but calmly walked back to the bridge.<\/p>\n
I approached him slowly and stopped when I got near him, but not too close – I didn’t want to scare him.<\/p>\n
He was sobbing and seemed confused.<\/p>\n
I said “Hello” and asked if he wouldn’t mind coming down from there. He asked me my name and I told him – he said his name was Bernie. He didn’t come down right away, but instead asked me if I was a believer.<\/p>\n
I gave it a moment’s thought and told him “Yes”. He asked what I believed in and I told him “Everything, but mostly hope”.<\/p>\n
He seemed a little calmer then and said he had another question for me. I said I’d be happy to answer, but maybe he could come down and we could talk for a bit? He shook his head and said he wanted an answer first. I nodded.<\/p>\n
He asked, “If I was your son and I did something really bad, like killed your wife – would you forgive me?”<\/p>\n
I told him I would. There really wasn’t any other answer.<\/p>\n
That seemed to satisfy him and I helped him down off the ledge and onto the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
I shook his hand and he thanked me – and said that 2 other people had walked by and didn’t say anything. He asked why I did and I told him that I saw him as I drove past and I was worried about him.<\/p>\n
I realized that a police car had pulled up and that an officer was standing in the street. I’m not normally one to miss details like that, but I guess I was pretty focused.<\/p>\n
The officer approached and asked Bernie if he recognized him. Bernie did and named him – Steve Hankins. \u00a0Officer Hankins asked if he could take Bernie somewhere and he agreed. Bernie told the officer that he didn’t have any weapons and that he’d thrown his knife out over the tracks.<\/p>\n
Bernie gathered his stuff and thanked me – and the officer and I thanked each other.<\/p>\n
They went to the patrol car and I walked back across the bridge and into my building.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how much of what Bernie told me was true, but it didn’t matter. He was scared and desperate and just needed to talk to someone.<\/p>\n
And I am deeply grateful that the police officer arrived. I don’t know if someone called or if this was his regular route, but I’m not sure what my next step would have been if he hadn’t been there.<\/p>\n
When I got in the office I was still pretty shaky. I called Jim and we talked for a few minutes – just needed a friendly voice.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t locate the officer’s email address on the Akron Police website, but I think I found his supervisor and I’ll see if they can relay a message.<\/p>\n
I don’t know what really prompted Bernie to climb up on that ledge or what he was waiting on. Maybe if three people had walked past without saying anything…<\/p>\n
I don’t know. But I’m glad I went to talk to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think I saved someone’s life this morning. I was driving into work – and running a little late, if truth be told – and was just crossing the bridge when I saw a guy standing up on the ledge of the bridge supports holding onto the lamp post. Below him, at a fatal distance, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2107,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}