Woman saved from suicide... to face the firing squad

This is the dramatic moment that family, friends and rescue service workers desperately try to stop a woman from leaping to her death.

They are forced to cling to Sheng Fi's legs as she threatens to throw herself off a nine-storey building.

But what they did not know was that she had smothered her four-year-old nephew just hours earlier and thrown his body from the same roof in Southern China.

Rescuers and relatives hold on to the legs of a woman attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a building in the city of Zhanjiang in China

Sheng had been embroiled in a bitter row with her sister-in-law, the young boy’s mother, and killed the boy as a result of the fight.

She admitted to smothering him to death and throwing his body from the 100ft tall building in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province before attempting to jump after him.

 

Unaware, rescue workers, who had been called after Sheng was spotted on the roof, brought her daughter to talk her down after which they moved to grab her before she made the fatal leap.

The horrific truth behind her suicide attempt was unveiled when she had been brought off the ledge.

‘She admits she'd thrown the boy's body off the same roof.’, a police spokesman told local media. ‘She will still die now, but by a firing squad for murder.'

Mission: The woman's daughter was brought up on the roof to attempt to talk her down - not knowing that her mother had killed her cousin

The woman, named Sheng Fi, tries yet again to throw herself from the building in an attempt to kill herself but the people holding her legs in a tight grip refused to let go, unaware of her hideous crime

China has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, placing ninth in World Health Organisation’s list of countries by suicide rate.

With 22.23 suicides per 100,000 people reported in 2010, China has a lower percentage than Latvia, Kazhakstan and South Korea but the total numbers soar above other countries due to its large population.

The WHO adds that their list is compiled using official statistics and relies on the reports from The People’s Republic of China rather than their own research.
Last year the Beijing Health Bureau spokesman Mao Yu confirmed over two million attempted suicides per year and announced that suicide was the biggest killer among 15 to 34-year-olds.

Stopped: Friends, relatives and rescue workers drag Sheng Fi back from the ledge after her suicide attempt