1999 jumpers

07.17.99: article • Bridge phones offer a new lifeline

07.17.99, sptimes.com, Solar-powered phones have been installed on the Skyway to offer direct help for those contemplating suicide.By LINDA GIBSON
The next time someone with suicide in mind stops at the crest of the Sunshine Skyway bridge, they will find a red box with a solar-powered phone inside.
All they have to do is pick up the handset and push the red button, and a specially trained counselor from the Crisis Center of Hillsborough County will answer.
"The purpose of the phones is for the crisis center to convince them there is another way out," said Sgt. Harold Winsett, who heads the crisis negotiating team of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. "This gives them another option."
The Skyway is the third-deadliest bridge in the country for suicides, said Crisis Center president Jerry Vazquez. Now it is the only bridge in the country with emergency phones connected to crisis counselors.
The Golden Gate Bridge, No. 1 on the suicide list, installed emergency phones, but they ring to the bridge authority. The Coronado Bridge in San Diego, No. 2, has no crisis phones.
Since 1996, 26 people have died after jumping off the Skyway. Most jump from the crest, 197 feet above Tampa Bay. By the time they hit the water 3.5 seconds later, their bodies are falling at 75 mph.
Michael Yakes of Gulfport, whose sister Linda Blankenship jumped from the bridge in 1997, welcomes the new phones but worries they won't stop anyone.
"There were motorist aid phones already at the bridge," he said. "A person could have picked those phones up."
Vazquez said the phones most likely will help the person who has some doubt about whether to jump.
"We hope it makes a difference," Vazquez said. "We can only be successful if a person is in a moment of ambivalence."
The Crisis Center has been working for five years to get the phones in place, Vazquez said. Not even the assistance of state Sen. John Grant, R-Tampa, broke through bureaucratic inertia.
But shortly after the first of the year, Grant got a call from newly elected Gov. Jeb Bush. How are those phones on the bridge coming? he asked Grant. They're not, Grant said.
"All of a sudden I began to get tremendous cooperation," Grant said, including a call from the Florida Department of Transportation.
Bush had toured the Crisis Center in March 1998 as Grant's guest and became acquainted with the phone project. The phones are part of an effort to make the bridge less attractive to people contemplating suicide. The other part of that effort, a barrier or net underneath the bridge, is being studied.
With the help of GTE, the Crisis Center installed six phones on the Skyway, three on the north side of the bridge and three on the south side. Police reports showed that some people chose to jump from the concrete supports holding up the cables just before or after the crest, so four phones were placed in those locations.
The other two are at the crest.
Although the phones work, the entire system isn't fully operational. Each phone has caller-ID capability that will allow counselors to determine exactly where the caller is on the bridge. Right now, however, a bug in the system is interfering with that capability.
Blue signs above the phones read "Crisis Center."
Three telephones at the Crisis Center's hotline office are connected to the bridge phones. While one counselor answers the call, another will notify the Florida Highway Patrol and give them the person's location on the bridge.
The patrol will then call the crisis negotiating team at the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office, which is responsible for the bridge because the shipping channel is part of Hillsborough County.
The phones were in place when 40-year-old Daniel J. LaVallie of St. Petersburg jumped to his death. He did not try to use them. The signs had not been installed then.

The Sunshine Skyway is now the only bridge in the country with emergency phones connected to crisis counselors. [Times photo: Pam Royal]

Michael Yakes' sister jumped from the bridge in 1997. He welcomes the phones but thinks that nets would do a better job of detterence.
[Times photo: Pam Royal]

06.28.99: jumper, 06:45am, male, hit water, died
Daniel LaVallie,, 40

winner: dave z., oldsmar, fl.
guessed: 06.28, 6am, female, hit rocks.

tbo.com, Jumped from center span. Body recovered by Coast Guard same day.

05.15.99: jumper, 06:50pm, male, hit water, lives
Lee R. Baggett, 40

winner: dustin w., lehigh acres, fl.
guessed: 05.13, 9am, female, hit water.

05.17.99, St. Petersburg Times©, Man survives fall from bridge; CHRISTINA HEADRICK
   The Tampa man appeared to have no broken bones or life-threatening injuries at the scene after the 197-foot drop. A 40-year-old Tampa man who jumped from the center span of the Sunshine Skyway in an apparent suicide attempt Saturday night somehow survived the 197-foot drop, deputies reported.
   After being rescued by a passing boater, Lee R. Baggett of [address withheld] was in stable condition Sunday in the intensive care unit at Bayfront Medical Center. Remarkably, Baggett appeared to have no broken bones or life- threatening injuries at the scene, said Hillsborough County sheriff's Deputy Dan Hillery. "This is extremely unusual," Hillery said.
Anyone who jumps from a point close to the center of the bridge hits the water in about 3.5 seconds at about 75 mph. The impact usually breaks bones and ruptures organs.
   Only two other people are known to have survived the fall from the central span of the bridge, according to Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office records. Both occurred in 1996, records state. One was a 52-year-old Sarasota woman. The other was a 44-year-old St. Petersburg man.
   The bridge is one of the country's most infamous. Six people killed themselves in 1996. Eight people died in 1997. At least 12 committed suicide in 1998. Two more have died so far this year.
   Gov. Jeb Bush and other suicide prevention advocates have called for new safety barriers to be constructed to prohibit jumping.
   Baggett left behind an audio-cassette explaining his intent to kill himself, Hillery said. He also left his driver's license in his car to help identify him. Then he parked his car on the bridge and walked to the center span about 6:50 p.m., the Sheriff's Office report states. He went over the west side.
   A boater and St. Petersburg resident, Chris Thrap, pulled him out of the water and brought him to shore, Hillery said. Neither Thrap nor Baggett's family returned messages for comment.

04.14.99: jumper, 09:34am, male, hit water, died
David Morgan, 48

winner: jim b., apollo beach
guessed: 04.14, 7am, male, hit water.
comments: this is the one... (apparently so.)

tbo.com, Left locked Mustang on southbound side of center span. Motorist saw him jump. Body recovered same day.

03.31.99: article • Bush working to stop Skyway suicides

03.31.99, sptimes.com, Phones linked to a crisis center will soon be installed on the bridge, and a fence or net is being studied. By PETER WALLSTEN
TALLAHASSEE -- Hoping to stop a rising number of suicides, Gov. Jeb Bush wants the state to build a barrier that would block people from jumping off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.
Bush toured a Hillsborough County crisis center as a candidate last year and took to heart concerns that too many people were jumping off the Skyway to commit suicide.
Now he's pushing state transportation officials to make swift improvements -- cellular phones and perhaps a fence or netting -- to one of the state's most picturesque bridges.
"Hey, I'm governor now," he said Tuesday. "I don't have to wait."
Law enforcement officials and crisis counselors have been worried for years about people jumping off the 12-year-old span, 197 feet above Tampa Bay at its crest.
The number of people who killed themselves by jumping from the Skyway steadily increased in the mid-1990s.
In 1996, there were six. In 1997, eight more people jumped to their deaths. By spring of 1998, the last time numbers were tallied, seven people already had plunged to their deaths.
"It's troubling that people are jumping off that bridge in record numbers," Bush said.
Bush called state Transportation Secretary Tom Barry last week to urge a speedy resolution to the problem.
In a memo to the governor, Barry says the department is moving quickly to study options for a "Skyway safety barrier."
Bush referred to a "netting," though Barry said Tuesday that there are many options. The department's study, to be completed by early May, would consider aesthetics, cost and even the danger from high winds.
"If you have a bridge like the Skyway, when you add something to it that wasn't intended, you do have to make sure you're not creating a problem," Barry said. "There could be noise and vibrations. And if you put something up that nobody can get through, how do you maintain and inspect the underside of the bridge?"
A similar proposal has led to heated debate in California, where there is intense pressure to protect the beauty of the historic Golden Gate Bridge.
More than 1,000 people have jumped to their deaths off the San Francisco bridge in six decades, far more than any other bridge. Public safety patrols monitor the bridge's sidewalks, and crisis phones have been installed.
But Golden Gate officials have struggled for years over the idea of a barrier. A spokeswoman said Monday the bridge's board of directors may be close to finding a barrier they like, but it has not been easy.
"We have not found one that is agreeable from the perspective of visual and aesthetic impact," said Mary Currie, a spokeswoman for the bridge. "We've studied a lot and ended up with a lot of rejections."
In Florida, the DOT has hired the Skyway's original designers to look for a solution.
Gene Figg, president of the Figg Engineering Group of Tallahassee, said Monday that it is too early to say whether he can find a barrier that would retain the beauty of the bridge.
Figg said he is not concerned about obstructing the view, but is relieved that another firm won't be able to tinker with his design.
"At least we can have an opportunity to make it as aesthetic as possible," Figg said. "I think that's a real plus, to have the designer try to handle the situation."
Neither Figg nor Barry could provide a cost estimate for a barrier.
"That would depend on so many factors, how high, how big, how long on the bridge to build it," Figg said.
Bush's directive may have a more immediate result.
The DOT soon will add six red, solar-powered cellular telephones at various points along the span.
The phones will connect users immediately to the Crisis Center of Hillsborough County, where counselors are on duty around the clock. The phones will be located at the crest and at the piers, where suicides often occur.
Bush learned about the suicide problem when he toured the Hillsborough crisis center in March 1998 with state Sen. John Grant, R-Tampa. Center officials told him the phones could help, and the advice stayed with him.
A year later, crisis center officials are hoping the phones get installed quickly.
"At the time a person is going to commit suicide, it's a very permanent solution to a temporary problem," said crisis center spokeswoman Beverly Hanney. "At the moment they're feeling hopeless, so there's always going to be that person who's going to do it no matter what.
"But if we make it more difficult and give them opportunities to talk it out, the chance is that we can prevent it."

03.21.99: jumper, 7am, male, died
John Brooks, 73

winner: mike j., pinellas park
guessed: 03.21, 4am, male.

tbo.com, Army veteran, resident of retirement community.

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