[P2P-F] Fwd: Australia : Man Lives on cliff and talks down suicide jumpers...for last 50 years

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, May 8, 2011 at 7:14 PM
Subject: Australia : Man Lives on cliff and talks down suicide jumpers...for
last 50 years
To:


Sounds meaningful - who will take over when he passes away ?
Working in the field of life insurance, and developing a vocation , talking
people away from suicide by giving them a hospitable alternative...

----

http://gawker.com/5563648/meet-the-australian-whos-saved-160-people-from-suicide<http://current.com/http://gawker.com/5563648/meet-the-australian-whos-saved-160-people-from-suicide>

Meet the Australian Who's Saved 160 People from Suicide
Don Ritchie lives across the street from the most famous suicide spot in
Australia: A cliff known as "The Gap."
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_(Sydney) )
Most people would move, but Ritchie's stayed for almost 50 years—saving an
estimated 160 people from suicide.

So what's his big secret? Ritchie wakes up every morning and looks out the
window for "anyone standing alone too close to the precipice." If he sees
someone who looks like they might be contemplating a jump, he walks over
and... strikes up a conversation.

He just gives them a warm smile, asks if they'd like to talk and invites
them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.

"I'm offering them an alternative, really," Ritchie says. "I always act in a
friendly manner. I smile."

Ritchie's house might be the worst real estate ever. One person a week
commits suicide at the "the Gap," the cliff he lives across from. It's
protected only by a small, one-meter fence, despite its legendary reputation
as a suicide spot dating back to the 1800s.

But the former life insurance salesman says he doesn't feel "burdened" by
the fact that people are always contemplating jumping to their deaths
outside his house. In fact, he and his wife Moya see it as a blessing: "I
think, 'Isn't it wonderful that we live here and we can help people?'"

Obviously, he's not always successful, and, at times, he's had to physically
restrain people from jumping while Moya calls the police. But it isn't
necessarily traumatic:

Despite all he has seen, he says he is not haunted by the ones who were
lost. He cannot remember the first suicide he witnessed, and none have
plagued his nightmares. He says he does his best with each person, and if he
loses one, he accepts that there was nothing more he could have done.

Ritchie, who basically sounds like the nicest guy in the entire world, is
84, and has spent much of the last year battling cancer. But, as you might
expect for a dude who's managed to live across from a fucked-up, tragic
place, and not become a casualty himself, he's optimistic: "I imagine
somebody else will come along and do what I've been doing." I hope so.



-- 
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20110510/08f72d08/attachment.htm