Jon Bon Jovi is being praised for helping a woman safely off the edge of a bridge in Nashville this week.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department tweeted Images from the rescue, which took place on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge on Tuesday, honor the “Livin' on a Prayer” rocker and his crew for their heroism while filming a music video on the bridge.
“A big thank you to @jonbonjovi and his team for assisting a woman on the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge Tuesday night,” Police Chief John Drake tweeted. “Bon Jovi helped coax her off the ledge over the Cumberland River to safety.”
The video, which has since been removed from YouTube, shows the “You Give Love a Bad Name” singer and a female production assistant approaching a woman standing outside the railing on the truss bridge's outer ledge. While the two spend a few seconds talking to the woman, police and crew members stand nearby. The woman eventually turns back toward the bridge to face them, and Bon Jovi and his partner help her up the railing. He and the woman then share a long hug.
“We all need to help keep each other safe,” the police chief wrote in his tweet.
A police department spokesman confirmed to The Times that the woman was taken to a hospital after the incident for evaluation, but declined to comment beyond the chief's statement about X.
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Bon Jovi's representatives declined to comment out of respect for the private citizen who was going through a crisis.
In 2006, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and his wife, Dorothea, founded the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which helps people in times of crisis. That gave Bon Jovi the training needed to talk to people in difficult circumstances. The Grammy Award winner was on the pedestrian bridge, which was open to the public Tuesday, to film a music video for “The People's House,” a song from his band's new album, “Forever.”
By the way, the bridge, which is in the center of the city and crosses the Cumberland River, was renamed in 2014 in honor of the late Tennessean editor John Seigenthaler, who, as a journalist, saved a man from jumping off the bridge in 1954, the Tennessean reported.
