Man climbs to end it all

Man climbs to end it all

Marco Nur, 23, struggled to free himself from the grips of
firemen and a volunteer. "No, leave me up here, I want to die,"
he said, eight hours after climbing to the top of a 20-meter high
street lamp on Jl. Sudirman, Central Jakarta.

The man, dressed in jeans, was eventually brought to the
ground at 6:15 p.m. and taken to the Tanah Abang Police
substation.

"He is depressed," said a police officer on duty at the
station.

The man, a resident of Cilandak in South Jakarta, climbed the
street lamp unnoticed at 9:45 a.m. He stripped off his T-shirt
and threw it to the ground, drawing the attention of passersby.
Heavy traffic congestion soon ensued.

He later emptied his pockets and threw the contents to the
ground: his identity card and Rp 400,000 (US$47) in Rp 100,000
and Rp 50,000 banknotes.

When firemen tried to rescue him, Marco threatened to jump off
by standing on the one of the pole's two horizontal bars. Things
turned intense after Sukarji, 19, climbed the pole to help. He
was eventually brought to the ground on a fire snorkel. --JP