A Radio DJ has been condemned by mental health charities after he played the song Jump as police were trying to talk down a suicidal woman from a motorway bridge.He played it to empathise with the drivers who were affected as police shut down the motorway, but never ones to miss a chance for some publicity, the po-faced immediately swung into action…
Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, said: 'Given the distressing circumstances, the decision to play "Jump" was highly insensitive and in very poor taste.Err, how? Presumably she didn’t have the radio on while she was perched on the bri…
'Media have a responsibility for their audience and jovialising such a situation could be fatal.'
Oh:
Some listeners also voiced their anger at Mr Penk./facepalm
Lorna Guinn, 42, said: 'It's irresponsible - this woman could have overheard it on someone's car stereo. '
Refreshingly, there was no abject, cringing apology forthcoming:
Mr Penk, who owns the radio station in the north west, has become renowned for making prank calls live on air.I salute you, Mr Penk.
He told The Sun: 'The entire area had been thrown into total chaos by a single troubled woman.
'I was very sorry to hear that the lady had subsequently jumped from the bridge, but relieved that her injuries were minor.
'If, as has been suggested, the woman jumped because she heard it from a passing car radio that's unfortunate.
'But I don't regret playing it for a minute.'
People are so good at dreaming up 'what if' scenarios nowadays that they have lost all grip on reality.
ReplyDeleteDoes the Mind spokesman really believe that the woman about to throw herself to oblivion is a) going to actually register that the radio is playing, b) be persuaded by the music being played.
SO if Mr Penk had played 'Dont Jump' by Tokio Hotel, would he have been lauded?
No I dont think so. Most likely someone would have tried to say that the music 'could' have had some reverse-psychological effect and caused her to jump.
Bah!!
" and jovialising such a situation could be fatal.'"
ReplyDeleteIs "jovialising" a real word?
don't tell the charming ladies at Feminazery because the fact that she threw herself off a building will be my fault somehow.
ReplyDeletehave been watching re-runs of M.A.S.H. recently and they still make me smile ;o)
bing
Anyone remember the clip that did the rounds on UTube of a totally pissed-off Japanese motorist actually pushing a chap off the bridge he'd been threatening to jump from..? .. into the safety net that the police had had set up underneath him for ages, but had been fannying-around trying to "talk him down".
ReplyDeleteyep, remember it, and it was cool, for a nanosecond
ReplyDeletedoes anyone know anything about Zanzibar?
He should have played the 'Hokey Cokey' and then the stupid woman could have provided some very worthwhile entertainment for the drivers who were inconvenienced by her suicide attempt.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, this recent story seems related:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-suicide-as-spectator-sport-ndash-what-does-that-say-about-us-1862427.html
couldn't resist it and told the young charming ladies over at 'Feminazery.blog.hate' about our long lost jumper woman.
ReplyDeletethey said it waz my fault, bing
r there cats in Zanzibar?
ReplyDeleteHell, it wasn't as if it was even a particularly tall motorway bridge she was on, and the silly cow had been there since three in the morning anyway. Surely that is long enough to deploy a few very large airbags below such an erstwhile jumper, then apply a size 12 to her backside to get her down the quick way?
ReplyDeleteYes, this is brutal and emotionally distressing for the would-be suicide, but it gets the road clear fairly quickly and with a bit of luck the whole experience would put her off threatening to jump off bridges in future.
or spray her with goo. some goo that stick her to the bridge for good.
ReplyDeleteany news on the cats?
Well I was one of those stuck on the motorway for over three hours through the actions of this bloody woman. The local plods were worse than worthless as usual, sat drinking coffee and doing the square root of @$%k all to get the traffic diverted and running as freely as possible. Frankly by the time I did get to work I would have pushed her myself. It is unbelievable that the entire M60 was closed and the entire traffic flow diverted onto a single lane road with no effort to change the traffic light timings to ease the motorway congestion.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I hope she recovers this sort of thing makes be bloody angry (pardon my Klatchian).
Michael (Rapidly becoming a bloody angry Michael).
Our country may not have succumbed to Swine Flu, but am I alone in wondering if a different ailment has been spreading across the land?
ReplyDeleteWho are these fuckwits who complain about these things? Why does it seem to me that significant sections of our population are so po-faced, so lacking in humour, so lacking in tolerance that they feel a fanatical zeal to complain?
Personally if I'd been stuck in a traffic jam for two hours because someone was threatening to leap I'd be well up for getting out and pushing the bastard off just to get things moving again.
hooo raa!
ReplyDelete‘Suicide Is Painless’ - only when successful
ReplyDeleteThank you. That made laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteOr it could have been
ReplyDeleteMandatory Suicide - Slayer
Learning to Fly - Foo Fighters
Antestor - Bridge of Death
"People are so good at dreaming up 'what if' scenarios nowadays that they have lost all grip on reality."
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonder they don't just sit, rocking quietly, in a darkened room. Perhaps they do..
"Is "jovialising" a real word?"
I must confess to never having heard it before!
"He should have played the 'Hokey Cokey' and then the stupid woman could have provided some very worthwhile entertainment for the drivers..."
Lol!
"...the silly cow had been there since three in the morning anyway. Surely that is long enough to deploy a few very large airbags.."
Ah, but this is the UK. We don't have a Mel Gibson type cop to go up, handcuff himself to her and make the leap.
Besides, think of the risk assessment form they'd have to fill in!
"The local plods were worse than worthless as usual, sat drinking coffee and doing the square root of @$%k all to get the traffic diverted and running as freely as possible. Frankly by the time I did get to work I would have pushed her myself."
ReplyDeleteI expect a lot of people felt that. I bet that chinese bridge jump video got a lot of hits, for the cathartic release, when they got home...
"Who are these fuckwits who complain about these things? Why does it seem to me that significant sections of our population are so po-faced, so lacking in humour, so lacking in tolerance that they feel a fanatical zeal to complain?"
And why are there so many of them all of a sudden?
"Or it could have been
Mandatory Suicide - Slayer
Learning to Fly - Foo Fighters
Antestor - Bridge of Death"
Lol!
Or Jump by Madonna, or Jump by The Pointer Sisters, or Jump by Kris Kross, or even Jump Around by House of Pain. And then, just to break the pattern, One Slip by Pink Floyd and Gravity by James Brown and Under The Bridge by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers ;-)
ReplyDeletePersonally I reckon if someone had played some Radiohead at her when she first got up there it wouldn't have taken as long as three hours to sort itself out.
Incidentally, WV is 'smash'. Seriously.
Mike, Zanzibar is the "zan" bit of Tanzania, hope that helps, dunno about the cats though.
ReplyDeleteWhy do these Jumpers always choose the venue most likely to disrupt everybody else? One tried it on the M5 long bridge just south of Bristol on Xmas Eve and the favorite place locally is the footbridge over the inner by-pass.
Hooray for the DJ for not apologising.