Suicide cases are alarmingly on the rise nowadays, and it’s really sad when we hear of people taking their own lives due to one reason or another. Fortunately, suicide awareness is also spreading as more people know how serious of an issue this is.
That being said, a woman from Florida successfully convinced a man not to jump off a bridge using Linkin Park lyrics.
Source: twitter
Cristina Settani was one of the many drivers who drove past the man sitting on the ledge. According to a video by Orange County Sheriff’s Office, she almost never took that route, but that particular day, she was running late.
She didn’t think about stopping at first, but as she saw him through her rearview mirror, she decided to stop her car and accompany him on the bridge.
“I stopped because I’ve been where he was,” she said in the video. “I know what it’s like to stand on the ledge and think that that’s your only option.”
“He needed somebody to show that somebody cared enough to stop and [cared] enough to tell him that he didn’t need to do that today.”
Source: twitter
As she sat with the man on the ledge, she recited a line from the song “One More Light” by Linkin Park that goes: “Who cares if one more light goes out? Well, I do”.
This brought the man to tears.
After receiving several calls about the man on the bridge, Deputy Shaun Cayer arrived on scene and saw Settanni and the man on the bridge. At first he was worried that the both of them were making a pact to jump together, but when he saw that Settanni had a really calm demeanour, he realised she was trying to help the man.
Source: twitter
Cayer then asked the man if he was alright, and the man said that he was doing okay. But when the man resisted after he was asked to step back, Cayer pulled the man off the ledge and onto safety.
Cayer learned that the man had made some bad decisions and didn’t want to let his family down.
“You got to just keep trying, man. Think of what this is going to do to your Mama if you actually went and hurt yourself,” Cayer told the man.
Source: twitter
The man was then taken to a mental health facility instead of getting arrested.
Settanni says that she thinks about the man every day and that she cannot bring herself to drive through that same road.
Linkin Park retweeted the video and acknowledged Settanni’s act of kindness on Wednesday, 31st July with the simple message, “Thank you Cristina.”
Thank you Cristina https://t.co/GqK9A0d8kL
— LINKIN PARK (@linkinpark) July 30, 2019
“One More Light” was Linkin Park’s last single with vocalist Chester Bennington. In 2017, Bennington took his life, leaving loved ones and fans heartbroken. After his death, the band launched a website dedicated to Bennington which contains details of the suicide hotline in the U.S.
Who knew that something as insignificant as a song lyric could be powerful enough to make someone rethink their life decisions?
