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SHAUNA O’RIORDAN SAVED a man’s life yesterday. The 19-year-old was on the way to work when she saw a man about to jump off a bridge in Limerick.
“The sun was shining, it was a normal day. I was just walking … and I saw a man, at that time, about to take his own life.
“Immediately I dropped everything I had and I just grabbed on to him and I reassured him that ‘This is not what you want … You have family and support out there.’”
Shauna (19) was interviewed on Tubridy today, where she recalled what happened.
“I was trying to get him down and do the best I could. I have never been in that situation in my whole entire life so I was just trying to say everything I could and there were so many things just popping into my head.”
I just think he was in such a horrible mindset … I was trying to get him to know that I was there for him even though we didn’t know one another.
He was saying ‘let me go’. At that time, his life was in my hands.
Shauna said she was “really shocked” no one helped her until she asked a woman to call the emergency services. Two “amazing” men then helped her until an ambulance arrived.
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She said the man who was trying to take his own life was in his 20s, noting: “That’s what kept running through my head: ‘You have your whole life ahead of you.’ Obviously, I would never understand what he was going through.”
“Thankfully in the end everything I did worked … I really hope he gets the help and support he needs.”
I was in tears, hysterics. For hours after I could not stop crying, I was shaking.
Shauna said that people who have been affected by suicide have since contacted her to thank her for her actions.
She called on other people to be more aware of what’s going on around them and try to help if they see someone in distress.
Helplines:
Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
Console 1800 247 247 – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement)
Aware 1890 303 302 (depression, anxiety)
Pieta House 01 601 0000 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide, self-harm)
Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)
Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)
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Cos that decisions not gonna cause any problems.
“A nonagenarian lawyer representing a Hindu deity “ ..well presumably the lawyer for the other side is also representing a fictitious deity?
This is a very dangerous development.
@Gary Sheahan: why?
When the gods start warring with each other it seems to go on forever .I wonder did ever hear about a Good Friday kind of thing and follow their poor mortals and come up with some sort of arrangement
Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
India going out of their way to piss off the muslims
@Mr.Misery: yep the Danes and French caused mayhem with a couple of cartoons. What are the Indians thinking??
@Greg Daniel: PM Modi is a Hindu ethno-nationalist, he’s been whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment for ages in India as a means to get into and hold onto power-he is a dangerous individual who will end up formenting mass murder if he’s not careful
@Mr.Misery: What could India possibly have against the religion that killed as many as 80 million of their people?
@DJ François: Yep, definitely. Kashmir was only the start of it. Now this. Lots more to come
@Fifty Shades of Sé: 80 million Indians killed by Muslims? Where did you get that from?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: religion killed 80 million? Hope they caught it.
@DJ François: hate mongering at it’s worst
@Niall Carry: I’m a Hindu. I know what we have suffered at the hands of invaders since time immemorial
But that is what Islam does, look at all the Christian sites in Israel as they all had an Islamic site built on most of them. And Christians did the same to pagan sites and so on and so on…
have your say