They are barely teenagers but they still know the value of life. Three boys who attend St. Mary’s High School in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire are being hailed as heroes for saving the life of a suicidal man.
Devonte Cafferkey, 13, Sammy Farah, 14, and Shawn Young, 12, were walking from school when they came across the troubled man.
“They were coming from school and loitering around, Shawn was telling them to hurry up,” Shawn’s mother Carol told Mirror. “If they had been messing around a bit longer, who knows what they would have come and met instead? I feel like they were meant to be there to help him.”
The man was sitting on the edge of an overpass ready to jump with a rope around his neck. The reaction of these boys was nothing short of a miracle.
They remained calm as they tried to keep the man away from the edge.
They spoke to him kindly and tried to convince him not to jump. They all grabbed the man to stop him from jumping. He tried to jump but they refused to let him go.
“Yeah, we were the first to arrive. We were persuading him not to jump. He was crying and wiping his eyes. We said, ‘You’ve got family and stuff, it’s not worth it,'” Devonte said during an interview with This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.
Another kind soul also rushed over to help.
Even though 47-year-old Joanne Stammers has Klippel-Trénaunay syndrome, which makes one extremely prone to blood clotting, she risked her health to help aid the boys.
She ran over and helped to hold on to the man “for what feels like forever” which left bruises all over her arm.
Jack Higlett also rushed over to help.
Meanwhile, one of the boys went and called the authorities. Now all five individuals will receive awards for the Royal Humane Society, a charity that promotes life-saving intervention, the Daily Mail reports.
“I am extremely proud of all three of them, they are all good boys and it’s nice that they are getting recognized for doing something good in the community. Quite often in the national news there are a lot of negative reports about young people so it is nice to have something positive,” Carol told Daily Mail.
“They are very young and I marvel at how they are all dealing with it. Every time I speak to them I learn something new about what happened. For example, the man was passing out and got heavier for them, I didn’t know that until recently.’
The boys were also presented with Special Achievement Awards for bravery from the Broxbourne Youth Awards.
“He has always been helpful to other people when he sees an older lady on the street with shopping he goes to help,” Sammy’s dad, Mohamed Farah, told the Hertfordshire Mercury.
“He is a quiet and humble boy. What they did was very brave. The man was a lot bigger and stronger than them and he didn’t care about his life so he could have hurt the boys. But they just ran to help.”
They were nominated for the awards by Hertfordshire Police.
“It’s amazing to get this award, it’s obviously under sad circumstances but it’s also great that the kids are getting something for what they did,” Joanne said. “I am really pleased for them and I hope other children can see it’s worth stopping to help someone.”
You can listen to the boys tell their account of the rescue in the video below.
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