Brighten Your Day

Beer Delivery Men Talk Suicidal Man Off Bridge With Offer To Share A Cold Beer

August 19, 2018

Two beer delivery men saved a stranger's life by stopping to talk to him and offering him a cold beer.

Kwame Anderson (right) and Jason Gaebel

While making their delivery rounds in St. Paul, Minnesota, Kwame Anderson and Jason Gabel noticed a man hanging onto the outside of a fence on an interstate overpass.

They pulled over and Anderson was first to jump out of the truck.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Anderson asked the man. "If you're thinking of jumping, you don't have to jump."

The man told Anderson, "You don't know me, you don't care. Why are you trying to save me?"

Anderson responded, "If I didn't care I wouldn't be here right now."

Once Anderson realized the man was suicidal, he called 911, but knew he had to keep the conversation going until police arrived.

"I thought about Denzel Washington when he's acting as a cop in movies. I said, 'well, I gotta keep this guy entertained somehow because if I wait for police, this thing may be over'," Anderson said.

For the next hour, Anderson made his pitch - even after police arrived. The two found out that they had similar upbringings, the man had a house nearby and they could relate to each other's problems.

Then, Anderson asked, "If you come down from there, do you want to get a drink with me and talk about what's going on?"

Anderson ran to the truck, grabbed a case of cold beer, opened it and told him, "I have a pack of Coors Light for you. Follow me'."

The man inched across the bridge to safety. He didn't get a drink because paramedics took him to the hospital for evaluation.

Turns out, Anderson and Gabel were in the right place at the right time. Gabel took a wrong turn.

"I don't know why I did this. I take a left and I go toward the bridge but usually we always go straight," Gabel said. "We have a route that we do every Wednesday and that wasn't the way I would normally go. It wasn't part of the plan, but it was God's plan."