|
Home Search |
Published on Tuesday, June 1, 2004
in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
ST. PETERSBURG -- Florida Highway Patrol Troopers Mark Cross and Dan Cole had a split second to decide what to do.
The troopers were standing atop the Sunshine Skyway bridge just before 3 a.m. Monday, talking to a man threatening to jump.
He was talking to a friend on a cell phone as he stood atop the bridge, Cross said, and told his friend he planned to jump.
The friend called 911, and the call was routed to Cross, on routine patrol looking for stranded motorists, vehicle accidents and potential jumpers along the five-mile stretch of bridge.
When Cross approached the man and began talking to the him, the man already was hanging off the bridge, Cross said.
"Only his upper torso and his right leg were on the inside of the barrier wall," Cross said. "The rest of him was hanging over."
As Cross talked to the jumper, Cole positioned himself toward the man's back and waited. Cross said the jumper told him he "had nothing left to live for" and released his tenuous hold on the bridge wall.
Cole and Cross lunged forward and caught the man before he fell.
"At first I lost sight of him, and I thought he was gone," Cross said. "It was a struggle to get him back over the wall because he really wanted to end it and to jump and he wasn't helping us drag him back over. I guess it was just adrenaline, because he was a big man and we managed to save him."
The troopers, based in Pinellas County, were assisted by two St. Petersburg Fire Department firefighters in pulling the man to safety. The firefighters' names were not available.
Cross said the man was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. FHP Trooper Larry Coggins said the patrol began assigning troopers to around-the-clock bridge patrol in January 2000.
He said that since then, troopers have rescued or prevented 45 people from jumping off the bridge.