Video of Bus Driver Saving Suicidal Mother with Child Viewed Over 4.5 Million Times
A video showing a bus driver in China saving a suicidal mother from jumping off of a bridge with her child has been viewed over 4.5 million times on the video-sharing platform TikTok as of October 28.
The video was seemingly taken from the vehicle's security cameras at 5:16 p.m. local time on October 21, according to the video's timestamp. The incident occurred in Guangzhou, in south China's Guangdong Province, according to the Chinese news website Guangzhou Daily.
The video starts by showing a mother walking on the side of the Pearl River Bridge, a non-pedestrian car bridge, while holding the hand of her young child.
Then, as the side doors of the bus open, a second security camera shows the mother trying to lift her child into her arms as she looks towards the water flowing under the bridge.
Yet another camera then shows the bus driver, a man named Zhang Zhide, ripping off his headset and rising from his seat to run toward the woman and her child.
The second camera then catches the driver running out of the bus toward the woman, now holding the child. The driver reaches her just as she lifts one of her legs over the bridge's railing, as if to jump into the water below. He then pulls her back onto the roadside, holding her from behind.
The video then shows passengers carrying the child into the bus as the driver stays with the woman on the roadside. Two men then bring the woman into the bus. She stumbles forward as she approaches the vehicle's open door.
The video, reposted by a TikTok user named Caroe Lynne, includes on-screen text that reads, "Imagine if he didn't stop what would have happened?"
Passengers eventually helped calm the mother. Police took her and her son to a police station, and a relative later picked up the child, the aforementioned news publication said.
The driver told the publication, "When I think of it now, I'm quite scared, because the guardrail is very short. If I arrive later or if I don't have enough strength, the consequences would be unimaginable."
In China, approximately 9.7 people out of every 100,000 kill themselves, according to a 2016 report by the World Health Organization. For every 100,000 people, approximately 10.3 Chinese women and 9.1 Chinese men die by suicide, the report added.
Approximately 17.5 percent of Chinese adults in four national provinces experienced a mental disorder, according to a 2009 study published in the medical journal The Lancet. Additionally, 91.8 percent of all individuals with any diagnosis of mental disorders in China never seek help, according to a 2011 article in the journal World Psychiatry.
If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours every day.
