MANKATO — Jeremy Hanel, a North Mankato man who sees a growing shortage of empathy and kindness in the world, did not do what he was told on Sept. 29, 2025.
Hanel had just picked up his son from work, and they were driving across the North Star Bridge, the one that carries Highway 169 high over the Minnesota River between Mankato and North Mankato.
“I was just looking around,” he said. “… I saw this kid standing on the other side of the railing, like he was ready to jump.”
After instructing his son to call 911, Hanel worked to turn his vehicle around so he could get back to the teenaged boy. The dispatcher — concerned about the safety of the Hanels — strongly advised against stopping on the narrow strip of pavement between the pedestrian walkway and the 65 mph traffic lanes.
“The dispatcher told me not to pull over,” Hanel said. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t not pull over.”
After parking his vehicle, he talked to the boy while cautiously approaching him. When he was close enough, he gave the boy a bear hug — the narrow metal bridge railing between them.
“He was crying and I just held him, talked to him as best as I could until I coaxed him over the railing.”
Hanel doesn’t have any professional background in emergency response or counseling or psychology. He worked at the old Jack and Jill grocery store on Belgrade Avenue before it closed, drove a distribution truck for Coca Cola, sold automotive parts and is now medically retired following a series of back surgeries.
But that doesn’t mean that he was inexperienced with what the boy was apparently going through.
“I dealt with mental health problems in my life — my mom tried to commit suicide I don’t know how many times. So it was a little triggering to me.”
As Hanel held the boy, who he later learned was about 14 years old, he just offered words from his heart.
“I just kept saying ‘This isn’t worth it. You have people who love you. You’re going to hurt all these people who love you.”
The teen said that members of his family didn’t care.
“I said, ‘Well I care.’ I told him I loved him,” Hanel said.
In time, the emergency personnel responding to the 911 call began to arrive. Hanel thinks the first was a State Patrol trooper, then Mankato and North Mankato police. A firefighter who came next seemed particularly adept at speaking with the boy.
“He was super good with the kid. I just slipped away,” said Hanel, who figured that was the end of the story for him.
Instead, his actions were reported to the Mankato Public Safety Awards Committee, and on Monday night he was granted the Citizen Life Saving Award by the Mankato City Council.
If his wife of 27 years and his three children were proud of him, at least one member of the family could have also asked: What took you so long Dad?
Sydney Hanel was only about 8 years old when she was nominated for the Girls Scouts Medal of Honor, which goes to a girl who has saved or attempted to save someone’s life.
Sydney had just finished her day at Monroe Elementary School in the spring of 2012 when she walked into her North Mankato home to find her father unresponsive on the kitchen floor. She yelled his name and tried to wake him without result.
It was hypoglycemia, an uncommon medical event for a type 2 diabetic like Jeremy Hanel, but it had happened once before and the family had talked about the appropriate actions to take if there was ever a repeat. Although that discussion had occurred months earlier, little Sydney had taken all of the instructions to heart.
Instead of panicking, she pushed a kitchen chair over to the refrigerator, climbed up, grabbed the bottle of glucose pills kept atop the frig, put one of the fast-dissolving tablets in Dad’s mouth, ran next door for help, called her Mom at work and then dialed 911.
“She was kind of my angel that day,” Hanel said.
Thirteen years later, it was his turn to take on the role. And maybe the kid on the bridge will continue the guardian angel tradition sometime in the distant future when he comes across someone in need.
“I hope so. I’ll just leave it at that,” Hanel said.
Because it was a situation involving a minor and mental health issues, there was no real possibility of interaction later or follow-up questions about how the boy is doing.
“I don’t know if he even remembers who I was,” Hanel said.
And the point of helping was never a quest for gratitude or for civic awards anyway. The motivation was more basic.
“I’m human,” he said. “I don’t want to see people die or get hurt.”
Hanel knows life is so much more complicated for children and adolescents these days, “with social media and everything bombarding them. It’s so different from when I was a kid. We just went out and played. Now, the whole world is putting so much pressure on kids.”
At the same moment those societal pressures are growing, Hanel sees a decline in compassion and an increase in meanness in many of his fellow Americans. He points to the recent shooting of a woman by federal agents — agents who then blocked a physician and others who wanted to see if they could administer first aid.
“This country is frustrating me right now,” he said. “If you look at what happened in Minneapolis, they wouldn’t even let a doctor to go in to help the person. Is that the kind of world we live in?”
It was not on Sept. 29, 2025 on the North Star Bridge midway between Mankato and North Mankato. Even if Hanel doesn’t want to be seen as heroic, he wouldn’t mind being seen as a good example.
“It doesn’t take anything to be a kind person and help somebody,” he said. “What I tell my kids, ‘There’s helpers out there, and they’ll find you if you’re in trouble.’”