1/13/2024 0 Comments Man jumps from bridge 2021![]() ![]() He hoped the barrier would reduce the frequency of suicide calls and visits to family members to deliver news of their loved one’s death. In a 2021 Tampa Bay Times story published as construction on the fencing was starting, Sullivan said he’d intercepted about 10 people in the three years he’d been working the Skyway detail. Sullivan is among the troopers who patrol the Skyway and rush to the scene of suspected suicide-related calls. She was straddling the fence along the southbound lanes one day in early August when Cpl. Previously, only a waist-high concrete wall stood between the bridge deck, which at its highest point soars nearly 200 feet over Tampa Bay.Īmong the first to climb the fencing after it was completed was a 48-year-old Tampa woman who said she did so, in part, to prove that it could be done, according to a Highway Patrol incident report. ![]() ![]() Officials said the netting and other safety measures put in place also have improved the chances that first responders can arrive in time to intervene. But the changes to the bridge were meant to make it harder for people to die so publicly and to potentially have a change of heart. It’s difficult to know if someone’s thwarted efforts to take their own life by jumping means that they are still alive today. Transportation Department officials never claimed the barrier would be 100% effective at stopping people from jumping from the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Incidents on the Skyway in the last year show how the fencing factored in suicide threats - and how trying to keep people from jumping is still part of the job for first responders. “The fencing has been an effective deterrent to those wishing to harm themselves along the iconic span,” said Highway Patrol Sgt. State officials said the statistics show the fence is working as planned, significantly reducing the number of suicides from a bridge that has consistently ranked among the deadliest in the nation for suicides. Before the barrier was built, about one person a month died by jumping from the bridge. So far, though, those are the only confirmed suicides from the bridge in the last 12 months, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The man’s death marked a grim milestone: the first suicide on the Skyway since the steel mesh fencing was completed at the end of June 2021. ![]()
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