Rock and Roll icon Jon Bon Jovi has recently been praised by the Nashville police and thousands of social media users for saving a woman who was about to jump off from the ledge of a bridge in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department shared a video of the legendary Bon Jovi frontman and his team who were walking through the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge when the woman was on the edge of the bridge.
Jon Bon Jovi and other members of both his team and the public talked to the woman and helped her off the edge of the bridge.
Video released by Nashville Police shows woman being helped off railing by Bon Jovi
Footage posted on social media suggests that, at the time, Jon Bon Jovi was at the Nashville bridge because he was shooting a music video. This was just moments before the incident took place.
The video shows how a woman in blue was holding onto the railing while standing on the edge. It was a truly dramatic scene. People began passing by her as Bon Jovi’s team started setting up cameras for the shoot.
The singer then calmly approached the woman while someone else from his team stood further away. He waved hello to her and proceeded to lean on the very rail she was holding onto.
After a minute of conversing with her, Jon Bon Jovi and another woman helped the woman who was about to jump off the ledge of the bridge get back onto the pedestrian walkway. After the woman was safe, other people began walking up to her and embraced her in a hug.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department captioned the video saying:
“A shout out to Jon Bon Jovi and his team for helping a woman on the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge on Tuesday night. Bon Jovi helped persuade her to come off the ledge over the Cumberland River to safety.”
Suicides have become a public health issue in the state of Tennessee
The case of the woman that Jon Bon Jovi helped save is not an isolated one. In the state of Tennessee, suicides have been steadily on the rise over the last few years.
In 2021, 1,219 people in the state died by suicide, which is a rate 25 percent higher than the national average.
Studies and censuses carried out in the state have led authorities to conclude that there are some individuals who are more likely to commit suicide than others. For instance, men are significantly more at risk with a suicide rate of 28.7 deaths per 100,000 people, which is about four times higher than that of women.
During the pandemic, the state of Tennessee saw 6,700 emergency department visits due to self-harm injuries and more than 2,200 hospitalizations. The data suggests that youth suicide is also a growing concern, given that those aged 10-14 and 20-34 are most likely to self-harm and/or commit suicide.
Need help? The national helpline in the US is 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Help Lines in Greece can be reached at 1018 – 24ωρη Γραμμή Παρέμβασης για την Αυτοκτονία