Netizens chatting in an online forum were able to stop a young Chinese man from committing suicide because of heartache, news reports say.

The man, named only as Zhang, recently broke up with his girlfriend from Shangqiu, Henan, reports the Dahe Daily. Because of this, the poor 23-year-old planned to take his own life Sunday.

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Zhang posted his plans in an online forum where, thankfully, hundreds of netizens were able to try to tell him to stop his plans and change his mind. However, online conversations were not enough as Zhang continued on with his plan and even uploaded a photo of him outside his former girlfriend’s home with his wrists slashed and bleeding.

Alarmed at the photo, two of the forum’s administrators persuaded Zhang to talk to them on the phone. Zhang agreed to have the phone conversation, and was later persuaded to stop himself from committing suicide.

Later, Zhang and the administrators went to his former girlfriend’s house, and then to the hospital to have his wounds treated. Zhang told reporters that he had acted on impulse, and will not repeat the same mistake again.

Zhang also thanked everyone who posted in the online forum, emphasizing how grateful he is for the concern that people had for him even though they did not know him.

Public Opinion Matters

While the general public in Zhang’s story was concerned for his life, bystanders in another suicidal man’s story didn’t care at all – and in fact urged him to kill himself.

Earlier last month, a depressed young Chinese man climbed up the Yiling Yangtze River Bridge in Yichang, Hubei province, reports Hubei Television. Unlike Zhang, this man was still undecided whether to kill himself by jumping off the bridge into the river, killing himself in the process.

Bystanders who saw him quickly gathered near him, but instead of telling him to stop and go back to safety, they actually pushed to continue, shouting “just do it.”

Police arrived just in the nick of time to stop the man from jumping. He was reportedly depressed because he broke up with his girlfriend, and had some family problems too.

He told police that the bystanders’ shouting provoked him to “just get on with it and die quickly.” Police said that the general public should avoid giving such comments to people in similar events.

TagsSuicide, Henan, Shangqiu, online forum, just do it