LOWELL, Mass., March 29 (UPI) -- A 92-year-old Massachusetts man is being hailed as a hero for saving the life of a drunken man as he tried to jump off a bridge over the Concord River.
"Hopefully by preventing him from committing suicide he can stop and say, 'Well, maybe life isn't that bad.' ... Maybe he can make 92 like me," George Kouloheras told the Boston Herald.
Kouloheras and another man pulled the distraught man from the railing of the bridge Saturday. He then sat on him, imploring him to reconsider.
"I was talking to him and I was saying, 'Ah take it easy, life is worth it,'" Kouloheras said.
Lowell Patrolman Dan Brady said that the man would have quickly drowned had he jumped into the fast-moving water. "Within a second he'd have been 100 feet down river and that would have been it."
The would-be jumper was later taken to Lowell General Hospital.
It was the second time in his long life that Kouloheras was Johnny-on-the-spot. Kouloheras also rescued a baby from a fire when he was only 12-years-old.
