Hillsborough County Sheriff's
Office: Izra James Richard Nowitzke, DOB 3-23-77, Polk City, Florida
February 28, 2003 at approximately 8:00 a.m., Skyway Bridge- Center Span
At approximately 5:00 a.m. this morning, Elmer’s Towing responded to call in Bradenton. The tow driver picked up Mr. Nowitzke and his pick up truck. As the tow driver was driving over the Skyway Bridge, Mr. Nowitzke opened his door and proceeded to get out of the vehicle. The driver slowed the tow truck at which time Nowitzke jumped out ran back to his pickup truck where he retrieved a rope and then ran to the yellow girders in the center of the Skyway. Nowitzke climbed up approximately 50 to 60 feet. Traffic in both directions on the Skyway was closed down for approximately one hour. Negotiators with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office talked to Nowitzke for approximately one hour and were able to talk him down. Nowitzke was transported to a Pinellas County hospital for evaluation.
Rescue on Sunshine Skyway Bridge:
Trooper Kristi Menzies
On Friday, February 28, 2003, during the early morning rush hour traffic, Trooper Kristi Menzies responded to the scene of an attempted suicide on the Skyway Bridge. Upon her arrival, she was able to make contact with a subject who was threatening to jump from the bridge.
The subject was standing on the top of the center span bridge support cable approximately fifty feet above the roadway. Through her efforts, Trooper Menzies was able to build a rapport with the subject, learning that he was despondent over past and present events in his personal life, which resulted in him threatening to commit suicide.
Trooper Menzies talked with the subject for over two hours until the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office responded with a trained negotiator. After an additional forty-five minutes, the subject voluntarily came down to the roadway and was no longer threatening to jump. According to the lead negotiator, Detective Todd Anthony, Trooper Menzie’s efforts were instrumental in helping to save the subject’s life.
For her actions, Trooper Menzies was selected as the Florida Highway Patrol’s
Trooper of the Month for February
2003.
photo: ALEX DIAZ The
Bradenton Herald (it appears to us that someone with a
bucket of rocks could have had this joker down and traffic flowing once again
in short order. judging from this picture, too much time, money, and effort
were involved in this idiot's prank.)
12.11.07, punchpixie, Tampa, Fl., video of the jump is available on Spike TV's "Whacked Out Sports" compilation which shows several times a year. Just set your Tivo to capture it, and you'll find it. The Spike TV episode also includes the fact that the injuries were extremely serious: "The five plunged at least 70 feet into the bay, still tethered together by pieces of
cable. This time, Trotter escaped with a bruised lung and a stiff neck. Sargent, too, came away banged up and bruised, but escaped major injury. Lori Martin wasn't so lucky. She broke a vertebra in her neck and was so medicated on Tuesday she stayed away from the
cameras. Rohm also broke a vertebra, but was walking around on Tuesday, his head held still in a metal halo drilled into his skull."
(anyone wishing to slip us a copy of this video will
forever be way cool.)
12.02.09, thanks to Spencer from Zionsville,
Indiana. he is now forever way cool. (this video could disappear again
without notice.)
The Skyway bridge, a beautiful sight in itself. From the top you can see countless miles of open water, and experience the peace, that nature has to offer. It is unfortunate the bridge is also associated with suicidal jumpers. Throughout the years several people have taken their life by jumping from the Skyway bridge. Is it possible some they never left the place, where they chose to leave it all behind? Fishermen of the Skyway pier tell countless stories of seeing "ghost". What is now the Skyway pier used to be the old Skyway Bridge where the stories of the jumper, and the hitchhiker will live forever.
Throughout the 1960's and 1970's scores of motorists using the Sunshine Skyway Bridge claimed to see a young blonde lady dressed in a tight T-shirt in an off-white or tan outfit poised to jump off of one of the main spans. She was reported during both day and night, many times when the structures were shrouded in fog. When Sheriff's Deputies would investigate, no trace of the young lady could be found, either at the top of the bridge, or in the waters below. By the end of the 1970's reports of a lady of similar appearance filtered in to toll collectors and local Sheriff's Deputies, only this time she was hitchhiking. Several motorists would pick her up.
She explained in a nervous tone that she had to get to the other side of the bridge. She would become more notably agitated the closer to the top of the bridge that the motorists went. When the drivers of the cars would turn around to reassure her that everything was all right she had simply vanished. These incidents involved many out of state drivers not familiar with these stories! Once the old southbound Skyway span was destroyed in May 1980 by the freighter "Summit Venture", the spectral Skyway lady was never seen again. Was she the spirit of a young lady who unbeknownst to others jumped to her death from the Skyway in the 1960's, or was she a harbinger of the death and terror that would occur on the old south span on that fateful May day in 1980?
Another legend or haunting of the Skyway involves a Greyhound bus and it's 22 passengers. Now known as the "ghost bus". On the morning of May 9, 1980, a storm born in Texas several days earlier slammed into the Tampa Bay area, pelting it with heavy rains and winds. At 6:20 A.M. that morning, Harbor Pilot John Lerro climbed the pilot's ladder in order to navigate the empty 606' long phosphate freighter, the "Summit Venture" from the mouth of Tampa Bay to port of Tampa. As the ship continued to head east in the channel not far from Egmont Key, visibility became near zero.
The storm became so intense that Lerro lost his bearings by 800' and the result was that the bow of the ship struck the southbound span's support pier at 7:34 A.M., resulting in a horrendous collapse of the main span. Six automobiles, one pick up truck, and one Greyhound bus bound for Miami plummeted almost 200' down at an estimated speed of 67 miles per hour into the waters of Tampa Bay-only one person survived-the pick up truck landed first onto the ship itself, then into the Bay-the driver of the pick up truck was recovered from the water, hospitalized and later released.
All in all 35 people died that morning. The Greyhound bus, a 1975 MC-B Crusader, had one driver and 22 passengers onboard. The bus was sheared by the impact so severely that the entire top 2/3rds of it was shorn off "like a pop top". More then 20 people have reported seeing the shadow image of a Greyhound driving down what is now the fishing pier, as if on the main road. The driver has the looking straight ahead, with both hands on the wheel, as if nothing was wrong. Some say a lady wearing black is looking out the back of the bus, smiling, and waving at those who are staring. The the bus the just disappears off the end of the pier. Others say every now, and then you can feel a strong breeze, and smell gas, as if a bus just drove past you.
Does the stories just make for good fisherman tales, perhaps they are just stories. It makes for a good spooky tale whether you believe it or not. The Sunshine Skyway bridge connects Tampa / St. Petersburg to Sarasota. The Skyway pier is great for night fishing, so grab a pole, and let me know if you see any ghost.
watch 'the
bridge', a documentary movie about 'golden
gate' bridge jumpers, now on this site.
watch the
preview
