Near Detroit, this impromptu lineup of truckers help save the life of a man contemplating suicide

By Dan Calabrese —— Bio and Archives April 24, 2018

Comments | Print This | Subscribe | Email Us

This is an extraordinary story – not only of the quick thinking and compassion of police officers but also of the compassion of a random bunch of truck drivers, who had no idea when they set out last night that they would ever be part of something like this. The fact that the whole thing happened just two miles from my home makes it that much more striking to me, but everyone should find inspiration in this.

Last night around 1 a.m. (technically this morning, I guess), a man wandered onto the Coolidge Hwy. overpass at I-696 and threatened to take is own life by jumping. Just for reference, this is about two miles north of the Detroit city limits in Oak Park, which is next to my city of Royal Oak. The Michigan State Police were called, and as always happens in such situations, they tried to figure out how to stop the man from jumping and taking his own life. That’s when the officers, who were routing cars off the highway, got the idea to ask for help from the truck drivers. As the police explained the situation, 13 drivers agreed to form a wall underneath the overpass, such that if the man were to jump, he would land on top of one of the trucks instead of crashing all the way to the ground – and would almost certainly survive. As the truck wall formed, the officers were bought more time to talk to the man, who eventually agreed to leave the overpass and seek help for his issues. It’s certainly possible that without the truck drivers doing what they did, the man might still have decided not to jump. But with the truck wall in place, it gave police officers more time to be patient with the man and do what they needed to do. It took four hours for them to convince him not to jump. Think about that. Truck drivers are on very tight delivery schedules, and it costs both them and their companies money if they have an unexpected four-hour delay. Yet each of these drivers willingly gave up that time to help this man, as did the police officers who stayed on the scene to talk the man down. Extraordinary. These were good people who did a very good thing. Pray for this man, and give thanks to God for putting such good people in this situation to implement such a creative and effective solution!