Don’t
look down

The thing about climbing out on a ledge is, it is potentially quite dangerous. That might be okay with a man considering suicide, but should that man then decide suicide’s not for him, he’s still out on a ledge. And in the case of a patient at D.C.’s George Washington University Hospital, that ledge proved far more difficult to climb off of than it was to climb on.

According to witnesses, the man, who had been brought to hospital for treatment after an auto accident, climbed out onto a fifth-storey ledge of the hospital shortly after noon, threatening to hurl himself to his death. Police and rescue workers quickly arrived to the scene with hearsay evidence of people loving him and his life being worth living. To be on the safe side, they also brought an air mattress. After four hours, the man tried to make his way back in through a hospital window, lost his footing and plummeted to the ground.

“When he fell, there was a large gasp,” explained one witness, describing the gasp as “like, ‘Whoa.’” Though part of the man landed on the mattress, part of him did not. He was promptly re-admitted to hospital in critical condition.

by SCOTT SAXON