Just before midday on November 11 last year, a dark-haired man climbed onto the parapet of Westminster Bridge and prepared to jump to his death. For the next four hours, as a crowd gathered and emergency services rushed to the scene, he stared into the Thames. At 4pm, as Big Ben struck, he leapt. Rescuers pulled him from the freezing water, dazed but alive.
Six months later, the jumper has been identified as John Untan, a 49-year-old Romanian father of three whose family lives in Australia. Speaking exclusively to the Standard, he said: 'It was a spur of the moment decision. I'd only been in the UK one month and I was homeless. I thought I'd go see Big Ben, but as I got onto the bridge, I thought, I've had enough, I can't take the pain no more, I'm going to jump.'
The pain stemmed from separation from his wife and children after his 2003 deportation from Australia following a prison term for heroin dealing. Earlier that day, Amnesty International had told him they could not help overturn his deportation. 'I was thinking, wait until dark so people don't have to see me smash my brains out,' he said. 'I worried about how to jump: head first or legs first? I'd never tried to kill myself before. But as soon as I jumped I was praying, God, don't let me die.'
John hit the water a metre from the bridge leg and was rescued. He spent a month in a psychiatric unit but was released without medication, doctors saying he had 'a crazy moment but you are not crazy'. His wife Karen posted online: 'He is depressed and isolated. He was a great dad and would never in clear mind do anything to hurt his children.'
John's early life in Romania under Ceausescu's regime included child labour in uranium mines and beatings by the secret police. He escaped to Australia, where he fell prey to Romanian criminal gangs. Now homeless in London, he says: 'I've always prided myself on being somebody who finishes what he starts. So, when Big Ben struck four, I just decided, do it.'
