Would You Stop Someone Doing The Unthinkable

Years ago, I was knocking on doors, selling vacuum cleaners.

I knocked on a door, and a tall lovely blond woman answered. I offered her a set of cutlery, if she would let me show her my vacuum.
She said "I don't believe it. I'm planning on taking my own life tonight, and you show up offering me knives?'

She asked me to come in, and proceeded to tell me about her troubles. None of them seemed all that bad to me. But she was distraught. She said "after you leave, I'm going to cut my wrists".

I said "Is it OK if I stay and watch?".

Her; "You'll try to stop me"
Me; "No, seriously, I'd like to watch. I won't stop you".

I listened to her for an hour or so, talking about how it's the end of the world for her.
Then, I showed her my vacuum cleaner, and she bought it.

We became friends, and later she asked me why I acted like I would have let her kill herself. I said "It wasn't an act. I may have called 911 after you did it, but I wouldn't have stopped you. If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have".
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Years later, a coworker called his wife, (she owned the company we worked at) telling her he was going to jump off a bridge. He had a real gambling problem, and owed a bookie some real money. She wanted me to go with her, because she thought I would be able to talk him down. He told her not to call the police. She didn't.

We got there, and he was sitting on a concrete support for the bridge. She talked to him for awhile, and then asked me to talk to him. I said....

"Are you really going to do it?" And he said "I can't think of a way out". And I said "How much money do you have in your wallet?" He said "Maybe $100. What difference does it make?".

I said, "Well, if you jump, you won't need it. Why not give it to your wife. And your rings. Let's do this the right way"

The whole thing was a way for him to keep his wife from leaving him, after he embezzled thousands of dollars from her company, to gamble with. If he was going to end it, she couldn't be mad at him. I knew about it (from him) going in.

He kept trying to make it about how he is so distraught. She kept crying...he kept crying...I kept telling him what to do to prepare to jump. I told him he wasn't high enough, and he'd probably just be crippled. I told him he needed to get to the center of the bridge.

His wife was buying his story. She was getting hysterical. And she wasn't too happy with me. Someone driving by (I assume), called the police, and they came and talked him down.

Later, his wife(a wonderful strong woman) thanked me for "Pretending not to care, to stall him from jumping. And keeping a level head.".

Later he asked me why I was using psychology on him. I told him I wasn't. That I would have let him jump. Because of him, and his gambling and stealing from the company, she later lost their business, home, and many of their friends. What a waste.

Added later; To clarify, I didn't watch the video. And if it was a teenager, child, or someone injured, I wouldn't have acted that way. I'm not a compassionate person. But I'm not a monster.

Wow. So you think the off topic section is no place for Jagseo because he doesn't meet the high quality standards set by such intellectual powerhouses such as yourself? His posts are like women's magazines and yours are like Scientific American? Now, THAT is funny.

I agree Frank - and, trust me, I DO skip over the videos!

Sometimes, though, I think his comments and the videos are quite callous and unthinking. Leads me to believe he needs some life experience himself.

Scientific American should sue you for linking them to Shane.......... Shane's posts are like old episodes of Lost In Space, but without all the attention to scientific accuracy.

Oddly - the only guilt I felt after that happened was that I DIDN'T feel guilty about my answer or about hanging up on him.

I guess it's "anything for YouTube views" but maybe it's also history repeating itself.

It's like a modern version of morality plays...