Saving the desperate at suicide hotspot

Putting her backpack down, she climbed over the fence and jumped into the rushing waters of the Danube below: the 16 year-old girl was the 29th attempted suicide to be saved by Renato Grbic, a Belgrade fisherman and restaurant owner.

On that October day “she was lucky that I was nearby with a friend to pull her out,” said her rescuer, an athletic 55-year-old.

“I was sitting in my taverna when a neighbor ran in and said someone had jumped from the bridge. So I took my boat ... I pulled her out,” Grbic said.

Built in 1946, the Pancevo Bridge has the notorious distinction of being a hot spot for Belgrade’s most desperate.

Until 2014, the road and rail bridge was the only crossing point over the River Danube in the Serbian capital and was spared during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbia over its war with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

The city’s central Brankov Bridge is another draw for suicide bids but the Sava River flowing underneath “is a pool” compared with the Danube, said Grbic.

The mighty Danube may conjure up romantic visions of epic waterway tours through enchanting European countryside in some of the 10 countries it flows through.

But Europe’s second longest river will carry anyone who wants to jump into it for many kilometers, and in winter, its temperature is barely above 0 C.

“Life expectancy” before fatal hypothermia “is 15 to 20 minutes,” Grbic said, whose family of river fishermen has lived at their waterside residence for four generations.

On the section where his tavern “At Renato and Goca” is located, the Danube is almost one kilometer wide. In the winter mist, it is hard to make out even the other side of the bank.

Some victims die of cardiac arrest when jumping or hitting the water some 20 meters down, such as a 73-year old man two years ago.

“Those who survive have a survival reflex. They scream, swim,” said Grbic, a married father-of-three grown-up sons.

Every year the authorities register 25 to 30 suicide attempts off Belgrade bridges.

“But these are only registered cases,” said Sasa Knezevic, deputy chief of Belgrade’s river police unit.

“I have known Renato forever,” Knezevic said. “If it was not for him, many people would not be saved after jumping into the river.”