![]() ![]() After almost a decade of consideration, construction began this month on a suicide prevention net at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, which has had more than 1,500 deaths since it was built around 80 years ago. The bridge is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.įor years, researchers have argued in favor of installing barriers or other obstructions at high-profile sites. The bridge, which connects Washington Heights, Manhattan on one side and Fort Lee, New Jersey on the other, sees a suicide attempt on average every three to four days. ![]() ![]() There were 18 people who died at the bridge each year in 20. Last year, 12 people jumped to their deaths from the bridge, along with 70 people who were stopped in the middle of an attempted jump. After 2011, when three people died, the loss of life along the pathway spiked dramatically. Suicides have been a fixture at the George Washington Bridge since the high-profile death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi in 2010. But at various points along the guardrail, blue signs with bold white lettering for suicide hotlines draw attention to a disturbing part of the bridge’s recent history: the roughly 100 people who have jumped to their deaths during the past seven years. Photo by Razi Syed.Īs pedestrians and cyclists traverse the roughly one-mile long pathway of the George Washington Bridge, they look over the breathtaking view of high-rise buildings on either side and the Hudson River down below. Over the past 7 years, roughly 100 people have jumped to their deaths at the bridge. “It would have been really easy to say, you know, he’s just posting on Facebook to be dramatic,” said MTA Bridges and Tunnels Director of Special Operations Richard Hildebrand.Numerous signs along the guardrail of the George Washington Bridge beckon people to call a hotline if they feel suicidal. The young man was handcuffed and taken to Elmhurst Hospital for evaluation, the MTA said. “He was emotional, he was distraught, he was upset, but we were able to identify him from that picture.” “I saw him on the walkway on a scooter, was able to positively identify him by that photo, initiated conversation with him,” Lt. The teen’s father warned his son might be on a scooter, and he was wearing a mask that obscured his face. “Within seconds of him hanging up the phone with the person’s father - within seconds - we had command notified and we had the RFK Bridge notified.” “The desk officer repeated everything the caller said loud enough for me to hear it, so before he had a chance to start making the calls, I was already on the phone giving everyone a heads up,” said Trabulsky, who also works out of Throgs Neck. It was very difficult to gain the intel that we needed.”Ī bomb attached to the vehicle of a radio journalist… “But he was hanging up the phone when he spoke to his father. “Based on some of the messages that he had posted or conversations that he had, it was indicated that he had made it over the bridge, and he was on the walkway, possibly even down to Randall’s Island,” Palazzola said. Dennis Palazzola, 31, one of three cops who found the teen. “At that height above the water, it was on everybody’s mind that we were down to the final seconds if he did make that decision to go over the wall,” said Lt. When officers spotted their target on the bridge’s pedestrian path just above Astoria Park, the young man fled toward the river. RFK patrolmen and NYPD cops rushed to canvass the massive three-borough bridge, which has three spans and 18 exits and entrances. to alert cops that his 17-year-old son had posted on social media that he was headed for the RFK Bridge to commit suicide. John Trabulsky, 41, said the desperate dad, who works on the Throgs Neck Bridge, called into the the bridge’s command center at 5:23 p.m. MTA cops staged a heroic rescue Tuesday night after a coworker’s teenage son posted on Snapchat about his imminent plans to to jump off the RFK Bridge.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |