Indian expat saved from suicide bid in Oman

Rescue operation goes viral

It was depression that drove an Indian expat to attempt suicide by jumping from a building. But rescuers got him talking and saved his life with a massive operation. 
The man - hailing from the Indian state of Kerala - had arrived in Oman only seven days back. And failure to get work forced him to take the extreme step.  
The footage of the rescue operation has gone viral on social media. It shows the 25-year-old jumping into the cradle of a rescue crane and hugging a firefighter. The video was released by the Public Authority for Civil Defence and Ambulance (PACDA). As the man was rescued, the large crowd watching him from below cheered on and went into applause. 
It all happened in Al Khuwair, where the man locked himself in an apartment, smashed a window and threw the apartment key over the balcony. 
After being informed, rescuers swung into action and spent two hours trying to talk the man out of jumping, the Times of Oman reported. They spoke to the man via a female Indian neighbour, and persuaded him to end his suicide bid, it added.
A statement from PACDA said, "Rescue teams and Royal Oman Police in Muscat managed to thwart an individual's attempt to commit suicide from the roof of a building in Al Khuwair."
Julanda Al Baluchi, assistant director of the rescue department in Civil Defence, was quoted in the report as saying, "After the man was rescued by Civil Defence, he was taken to the Baushar police station for questioning and to carry out procedures."
"The rescue team consisted of rescuers, cranes and cars," Baluchi said. 
A PACDA spokesman pointed out, "He wasn't Omani, and it was difficult to communicate with him. That's why we asked his Asian neighbour to translate everything for us, and we kept on negotiating with him for quite some time." 
"We don't know what prompted him to take this step, but we know that he was looking for a job in Oman," a neighbour was quoted as saying in the report.