A woman from Clearwater, Florida, told Fox 13 that she helped keep a stranger from jumping off a bridge — and that she prayed with the man, offered him a hug, and told him “everything is going to be OK,” as Fox News is reporting on Friday morning.
Nicole Oyola is just 23 years old, according the Fox report.
She said she was driving and suddenly spotted a man on the edge of a bridge —the Howard-Franklin Bridge outside of Tampa, on Thursday — and pulled over to talk to him.
“I started talking to him. I told him, ‘You’re worth it. You’re enough,’” Oyola said, as the Fox News piece noted.
She also told him, “I don’t know what you’re going through, but I love you and God loves you and everything is going to be OK.”
The man appeared to be in his early 20s or so, she told the station.
And at first she thought he’d stopped on the bridge because he was having car trouble.
Oyola said that she called the police.
An officer soon arrived at the scene and “prayed with the man before taking him off the bridge,” Fox News noted.
The station reported that the individual — who had very nearly taken his own life — is now undergoing counseling.
A woman pulls over on bridge and talks a man out of jumping. “I started talking to him. I told him, ‘You're worth it. You're enough. I don't know what you're going through, but I love you & God loves you and everything is going to be okay.’” ❤️ #Fox35 #GDO https://t.co/LgQgLKe6eO
— Amy Kaufeldt (@Fox35Amy) November 2, 2018
Oyola told the news outlet that while she was talking to the man, he apparently became completely “overwhelmed with emotion.”
“He looked at me, and after he looked at me he started crying and I said, ‘I just want to give you a hug.’”
“So he came to the other side and I gave him a hug,’” she told Fox 13.
“I don’t know what you’re going through, but I love you and God loves you and everything is going to be OK,” the woman told the suicidal man.
“God has a purpose for everyone,” she added.
“I believe in that, so I stopped. I just wanted to help him feel better. If I was going through that, I would want someone to stop for me, too.”
Clearly she trusted her instincts.
Clearly she showed enormous compassion — and went out of her way for a human being she did not know at all.
Clearly she saved a life by doing so.
Thank goodness she did what she did.
Share your thoughts in the comments section below — and check out this video about how suicide rates are — very sadly — rising in this country:
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