SEATTLE (Reuters) - A woman leaped from a Seattle highway bridge into a ship canal on Tuesday after frustrated drivers stuck in the rush-hour traffic jam she created yelled for her to jump, police said.
"Commuters were coming by and urging her to jump and that was on the mild side of what they said. I'm not going to repeat the other things they said," Seattle Police spokesman Clem Benton told Reuters.
Police fished the 28-year-old woman out of the canal and drove her to Harborview Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition with chest and abdominal injuries.
The bridge spans a busy canal connecting Puget Sound to Lake Union and Lake Washington. The woman sat perched on a railing as police tried for three hours to talk her down, to no avail.
"You hope to say something that will touch that person and pull them through it," Benton said, adding that a male acquaintance was also rushed to the scene to try to coax her from the ledge.
The crowd reaction flies in the face of Seattle's reputation as a laid-back city with sensitive citizens. Increasing roadway congestion has raised the ire of many residents.
"In my experience on the job, you can never be surprised by what people will do," Benton said. "Obviously when you have an individual in some type of crisis, yelling for her to jump is very insensitive to a person's life."
"Commuters were coming by and urging her to jump and that was on the mild side of what they said. I'm not going to repeat the other things they said," Seattle Police spokesman Clem Benton told Reuters.
Police fished the 28-year-old woman out of the canal and drove her to Harborview Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition with chest and abdominal injuries.
The bridge spans a busy canal connecting Puget Sound to Lake Union and Lake Washington. The woman sat perched on a railing as police tried for three hours to talk her down, to no avail.
"You hope to say something that will touch that person and pull them through it," Benton said, adding that a male acquaintance was also rushed to the scene to try to coax her from the ledge.
The crowd reaction flies in the face of Seattle's reputation as a laid-back city with sensitive citizens. Increasing roadway congestion has raised the ire of many residents.
"In my experience on the job, you can never be surprised by what people will do," Benton said. "Obviously when you have an individual in some type of crisis, yelling for her to jump is very insensitive to a person's life."
