April 25--Lonnie Monroe, 54, was headed home from a landscaping job on Thursday, pushing his shopping cart with a lawn mower and other equipment on an Interstate 580 overpass in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood.
When he encountered a man near the span on Ardley Avenue, he instantly knew something was amiss.
"You could see the look on his face," Monroe said. "There was something seriously wrong with him. I just felt his energy was bad."
To his horror, the man with the purple striped shirt and purple sneakers began walking onto the overpass -- except on the other side of the protective railing, exposing him to traffic.
The man told Monroe he wanted to die and began inching toward the middle of the overpass.
Without hesitation, Monroe began walking with him, from the safe side of the railing.
"It's just the right thing to do," Monroe said later. "This young man, I happened to see him on the wrong side of the bridge, and my spirit told me it wasn't worthy for him being out there."
The two men kept going until they were directly over westbound traffic on the freeway.
"I walked with him all the way across," Monroe said.
Held in a bear hug
Then he held onto the man in a bear hug. And he didn't let go.
Passersby realized what was happening, and one brought over a rope. The despondent man didn't want anybody else to touch him or talk to him, so Monroe gently wrapped the rope around the man's body.
He clung to him as other citizens, including Daniel Galvin and his friend Garrett Vaughan, kept a firm hold on the rope and tried to reassure him, saying they loved him and cared about him.
"It was really a communal effort," Galvin said. "I can't emphasize enough how instrumental the man with the cart was in all of this. He was talking to the person the whole time they were up there."
Monroe said, "He never said anything to anybody except me. He just told me he didn't want to be here anymore. He wasn't happy and he wanted to die. I asked him why, and he didn't answer me."
Monroe began talking about his family and asked the man about his. "F- my family," the man replied, according to Monroe.
Monroe decided to reveal details about his own family.
"I just shared with him what I went through in my life," Monroe said, including the death of his 24-year-old stepson, Joshua Brown, in November. A tree fell on him during a windstorm in Oakland.
Monroe also told him that his mother had passed away. "I told him when I lost my mom, I didn't know what to do," he said.
As the two men kept talking, Oakland police, firefighters and paramedics arrived. CHP officers blocked traffic below.
Oakland police Sgt. William Bardsley told officers to let Monroe stay right where he was.
Good rapport
"You had such a good grip on him and good rapport with him, I said, 'Let Lonnie keep talking to him,' " Bardsley told Monroe afterward.
Oakland firefighters maneuvered a ladder truck below the group. Oakland school district Sgt. Antonio Fregoso then climbed to the top, handcuffed the suicidal man to the ladder as a precaution and held onto him as the ladder was lowered to the center median.
He was taken by ambulance to Highland Hospital in Oakland.
"I'm just glad everything ended well, and we got him the help he needed," Fregoso said.
Galvin said he had trouble describing how relieved he felt.
"It was just, like this crazy celebratory feeling," he said. "I don't know how to put it into words. I'm still in shock. When we first got there, this person definitely could have jumped. I came that close to seeing (the person) die right in front of me."
Monroe dismissed any suggestions that he was a hero.
He began tearing up as he said, "It's the right thing to do, you know?"
He added, "It's not actually the right thing, it's the honorable and worthy thing to do."
Henry K. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @henryklee San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Kale Williams contributed to this story.
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