Chen Fuchao, over his head in debt, had been hanging out on a bridge considering suicide when a watcher, apparently just a passer-by came up, shook his hand — and then promptly shoved him off the ledge.
Chen fell a bout 26 feet onto a partially inflated emergency air cushion which had been earlier laid out by authorities and survived, although he is now suffering spine and elbow injuries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.
The passer-by, 66-year-old Lai Jiansheng,said he was just literally fed up with what he termed to be Chen’s “selfish activity,” Xinhua said. “Traffic around the Haizhu bridge in the city of Guangzhou had been backed up for five hours and police had cordoned off the area.”
“I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest,” Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. “They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities’ attention to their appeals.”
Lai was removed by the police.
