Amazing story in the Freeman today about Antonio Flores-Lobos, the editor of the Daily Freeman's Spanish publication Las Noticias, who stopped a suicidal woman on the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge on Friday just as she was about to jump.
The story is written in an unusually flowery style for the Freeman, but given the subject matter, I can't blame the reporter one bit. Flores-Lobos, who was the first and one of the only of the many drivers on the bridge to stop when he saw the women teetering on the rail, clearly deserves a hero's write-up:
“First, I saw the turquoise car parked. Then, I noticed a woman in a blue coat with a hood. She had her right leg up on the bridge railing and was struggling to get her left leg up,” Flores-Lobos said, shaking his head at the memory. “She was ready to jump.”
Flores-Lobos said he didn’t even take time to think. He pulled over, threw his car into park, and leaped out.
“‘No! No! No! No!’ I said as I ran toward her,” Flores-Lobos said. “She was facing the river, with her back to me. I grabbed her by the shoulders of her blue coat and pulled her down.”
“I want to die! I want to die!” the woman told him, looking back over her shoulder at the bridge railing.
“I kept my hand on her arm – just in case,” Flores-Lobos said.
“I don’t want to live,” the woman told him.
“She said her husband had died and she had nothing to live for,” said Flores-Lobos. “She looked kind of lost, like she had given up.”
He said she was somewhat frail and did not fight him when he pulled her back down from the railing. Nevertheless, he kept a gentle but firm hold on her arm as they talked.
“‘It’s a beautiful day, a beautiful day. You don’t want to do this,’” I told her,” Flores-Lobos recalled. “Life, living, is beautiful. It’s everything.”
Best of all, Flores-Lobos didn't tell his bosses at the Freeman about his action for two days, because he didn't want to exploit the woman. It's only after he mentioned the experience to an editor that he was sat down, interviewed, videoed, and given a full feature.
Flores-Lobos tells the Freeman in the story that he was particularly disturbed by the fact that only he and one other driver stopped to help the would-be jumper.
Glancing around for assistance, Flores-Lobos realized he was alone; his car was the only one that had stopped. During the interview two days later, it was a fact that troubled him, and he returned to it several times.
“I was not the only one who saw the parked car and the woman on the railing,” Flores-Lobos said. He said he noticed other motorists slowing to look, then proceeding.
“But no one stopped. No one wanted to get involved.”
