Two beer delivery men were driving across a bridge in St. Paul, Minnesota when they noticed something alarming – a man standing on the far side of the railings, looking like he was getting ready to jump. So, using the limited resources in their possession, these kind men took action to save a life.
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Driver Kwame Anderson told Fox9 that when he and his colleague, Jason, spotted the man leaning perilously over the edge of the freeway, he couldn’t believe it was happening. “My first impression is this is not happening right now,” he recalled. “Is this fake?”
His first words to the hopeless man were “Hey, what are you doing? If you’re thinking of jumping, you don’t have to jump,” according to Twin Cities Pioneer Press. “You don’t know me, you don’t care. Why are you trying to save me?” the man snapped back. Anderson responded, “If I didn’t care I wouldn’t be here right now.”
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Not knowing what to do next, Anderson attempted to forge an initial bond with the suicidal man. He quickly found out that the guy was from Chicago. “He said, ‘Chicago’s tough,’ ” Anderson said. “I said, ‘I grew up on the East Side of St. Paul, in the hood just like you.’”
The conversation continued, and Anderson made several attempts to meet the guy’s needs in order to help him away from the ledge. He asked him whether he needed money or food, but the guy refused. So, with a truck full of cold beers behind him, he took a different route.
“If you come down from there, do you want to get a drink with me and talk about what’s going on?” he asked the troubled man, sprinting back to his truck and unloading some beers. “I have a pack of Coors Light for you. Follow me.’”
As it turns out, that was all it took. The man edged his way back from his perilous position and hung out with the delivery guys until help arrived. “I felt relieved,” Anderson said of the moment the man decided not to jump, as reported by Fox9. “I didn’t plan on saving anybody, but I knew when I saw him standing here I wasn’t going to leave until he came off.”
He was quickly rushed to the hospital for evaluation. Anderson, who is a stand-up comic in his spare time, is hoping to reconnect with the guy and invite him to one of his shows.
“I told him if he needs a laugh, invite him out to one of my comedy shows,” Anderson added. “If he comes, I’ll make sure he has a beer and has a good night.”
Jason Gaebel, the other man in the truck, explained how the pair deviated from their usual route on that day. He is convinced that there was a higher spiritual reason for why they found themselves there at that precise moment.
“God has everything to do with this,” he said.
Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman, praised the delivery drivers for reaching out the suicidal man with such a wonderful gesture of kindness. “The really good thing is the person driving by saw what was going on, recognized a person in crisis and realized he could make a difference for him by stopping and talking,” he said.
“Beer has been bringing people together for a long, long time,” Ernster added. “Today, it brought people together in a life-saving way.”