DANUBE FISHERMAN HAULS JUMPERS TO SAFETY
The freezing waters in the Serbian capital of Belgrade are patrolled by a man who helps the desperate By Nicolas Gaudichet and Katarina Subasic
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 neighbour ran in and said someone had jumped from the bridge. So I took my boat ... I pulled her out.”
Built in 1946, the Pancevo Bridge has the notorious distinction of being a hotspot 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 Mr 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 kilometres, and in winter its temperature is barely above zero degrees C.
Life expectancy before fatal hypothermia is 15 to 20 minutes, said Mr Grbic, 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 kilometre 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 metres down, such as a 73-year old man two years ago.
“Those who survive have a survival reflex. They scream, swim,” said Mr 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, adding the figures peak towards the end of the summer.
Police usually act to prevent suicides when they spot potential cases through video surveillance but the closest river police station is about 15 minutes upstream, said Mr Grbic.
“I have known Renato forever,” Mr Knezevic said. “If it was not for him, many people would not be saved after jumping into the river.”
Mr Grbic said he spent 90% of his time fishing. His 29 rescues of Pancevo Bridge jumpers span nearly two decades and his efforts have won him official recognition.
A wall in his restaurant is adorned with elaborate certificates for bravery awarded by local authorities as well as newspaper articles about him.
Serbia is in the top third of European countries with the highest number of suicides, at 16.8 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Mr Grbic believes most suicide attempts are a cry for help since, he says, most jump in the daytime. “They want to be seen, they want to alert,” he said.
Those who really want to die opt for the Brankov Bridge for its concrete riverbanks.
As far as he knows, Mr Grbic says that out of the 29 people whom he has saved, only one, a postman, did it again and ended his life by going for the concrete.
The first person he rescued was a young man about 18 years ago. “It took me several attempts and I literally begged him to give me a hand” to pull him out, he said.
He often wonders about what has become of those he has saved. But only two young women out of the 29 got back in touch. One of them, now a mother, “understood that life was worth much more than what she wanted to do”.
A psychiatrist once told him that those people were grateful but were embarrassed to face him. “Nevertheless, I would really like to know something about them ... that I offered them a second life and that they kept living,” he said.