On the evening of April 6th, Cui Qi, the girl from Qingdao, who is starting her own business alone in London, the UK, came across a woman who wanted to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge on her way home. At this critical moment, Cui Qi talked to her calmly and reported to the police after successfully stabilizing her emotion. After saved for the first time, this woman tried again to commit suicide after Cui Qi and the police left. With her keen observation, Cui Qi realized that she was likely to commit suicide again and requested with determination the police to return to the site. As expected they found the woman walking back and forth in the middle of the bridge and was almost hit by the coming cars and then they rescued her again. On April 8th, we contacted Cui Qi. On mentioning her bold and righteous behavior, she said: “There is no hesitation at all in front of a precious life.” The London police gave high compliments to Cui Qi’s good deed and called her a “good London citizen”.

    Come across a suicidal woman late at night on a bridge

    In early spring, it still felt a sense of chill on London streets at late night. After having diner with her friends at 6 pm local time, Cui Qi walked home alone. When she passed by Chelsea Bridge at over 11 pm in the evening, with the moonlight she found a woman climbing onto the bridge, then climbing over the guard bar and standing in front of the river. As she grabbed the guard bar with a hand, she wiped off tears continuously from her face with another hand. “Gosh, someone is committing suicide,” Cui Qi immediately realized the bad situation.

    “At the bottom of Chelsea Bridge is Thames River. Although the bridge is about 15m high from the water surface, the river water is very chilly and she will be at least seriously wounded if she fell down the bridge.” As Cui Qi thought about it, she approached the woman. “What is your name? Where do you live? What about going to my apartment for a cup of coffee?” Cui Qi who tried her best to keep calm, and started talking with this woman to distract her attention until she grasped her arms firmly. “She is a black British citizen at the age of about 20 and works in record production. I learned this information when I chatted with her. She kept saying she felt very tired and unhappy.”

    Report to the police calmly and successfully persuade the woman to abandon suicide

    “In fact I was very afraid. I have never encountered such situation. At the beginning I didn’t know at all what to talk to her to stabilize her emotion. I could only act on my own discretion.” After Cui Qi confirmed that the woman actually wanted to commit suicide, she called the police as she tried her best to persuade with patience. During the period she grabbed the woman’s arms all the time to prevent her from braking loose. After hearing Cui Qi call the police, the woman stopped weeping, climbed back from the guard bar by herself and she looked very peaceful in emotion. She expressed gratitude to Cui Qi as she said she was ok and planned to go home now.

    Cui Qi still felt indistinctly there was something wrong when she looked at the emotional state of the woman. “I am afraid there is danger if she goes home alone so I proposed to escort her home. At the beginning, she agreed. But before arriving at the end of the bridge, she changed her mind, refused my idea and insisted on going home by herself.” Although Cui Qi felt worried, she couldn’t do anything but give her mobile phone number to the woman and tell her to text a message after getting home. Subsequently this woman left alone.

    Fortunately the second suicide attempt was prevented by the police

    After about 2 minutes Cui Qi met the police near the bridge who came at the alarm and she told roughly the police what has happened. During the period she felt something strange before the woman left and thought the woman was likely to commit suicide again. To prevent the accident, Cui Qi decidedly requested to take the police car to return to the spot and search for this woman. To her expectation, when the police car just drove for about 500m, Cui Qi found the woman who was just rescued by herself standing in the middle of the bridge and colliding right and left with the vehicle stream.

    At this critical moment, two groups of policemen immediately opened the car and rushed out. One group gave the avoidance sign to the passing vehicles. Another group ran to the middle of the bridge and held the woman. “It is too dangerous. Although there are fewer vehicles in the evening, the speed is quite fast. If the police hadn’t come and prevented the accident, the result cannot be imagined.” When the police controlled seeing the woman, Cui Qi could finally breathe at ease.

    Courageous and resolute personality is resulted from 14 years’ overseas life experience

    After this frightening evening, Cui Qi posted a message in her Wechat friend circle that this is the first time in my life rescuing someone else’s life. She told us at the time of the incident, she didn’t have any hesitation and only had the idea in her brain to rescue this life. Many good friends of Cui Qi praised her decisive, courageous and righteous deed. Moreover London police expressed gratitude to her for many times. Cui Qi said: “They complimented me and said I was a good citizen!”

    Cui Qi’s ability to remain calm and keep her wits at such critical moments is greatly attributable to her life experience and personality. In her daily life, Cui Qi has a lot of hobbies, especially outdoor sports. In 2003, she came to Britain alone and studied at Cambridge University. In college, she was a main player of Cambridge University Yacht Club. After completing the education, Cui Qi worked at British Central Bank and became the first Chinese female economic analyst in the history of the bank. Last year she decided to start her own business, mainly in cross-border e-commerce. Fluent English communication ability and analysis and judgment ability in emergency situation enabled Cui Qi to successfully rescue the life of a young woman in a foreign country.

    The heroic deed of Cui Qi attracted a lot of attention in her Wechat friend circle. In addition, a few media and Wechat public numbers reported her deed in succession. By April 8th, only the article published in “Let’s talk about the UK”, the readership and thumb-up click has reached 7,000 times. Xu Meizhong

    1. Cui Qi 2. After Cui Qi called the police, the police returned to the accident spot to rescue the victim. (Provided by Cui Qi)