It was lucky, too, that Antonia, of Renton, and his son were fishing below and rescued the jumper, Troyer said. Five feet farther out he would have been in deeper water and probably would not have been rescued, Troyer said. Troyer estimated the fall was 150 to 180 feet and says if the man had jumped five feet closer to shore or five feet farther out he would have been killed.įive feet closer and he would have hit the beach. Lucky? "He was the luckiest guy on the face of the Earth," said Ed Troyer, a Pierce County sheriff's deputy who responded to the west end of the bridge. Rice said the plunge is about 190 feet from midspan. Richard Rice, of the Pierce County sheriff's office. He is one of two or three people who have jumped from the bridge and survived, since the bridge was re-built in 1950, said Lt. ![]() The man, a 32-year-old Gig Harbor resident, is in serious condition in Tacoma General Hospital with shoulder injuries and extensive bruises that are not considered life-threatening. He denied jumping off the bridge but later told Antonia that he was schizophrenic, that he heard voices and, "I just wanted it to be over," Antonia said. The man stood up, and Paul Antonia tried to drape his coat around the man, but the man yelled at him. ![]() "Where am I? What happened?" the man asked a fisherman who rescued him. It's hard to know if the man who leaped off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on Sunday afternoon will ever appreciate how lucky he was.
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