On December 20th, rangers were warned that a possibly suicidal West Virginia man was headed for the 876-foot-high New River Bridge. The man had given his wife $8,000 and a suicide note in which he said that he planned to jump off a bridge. The report said that he was driving a canary yellow Scion. Two rangers monitored bridge access points for about an hour before clearing. Late that afternoon, one of the rangers was driving home when he saw a yellow Scion turning off of West Virginia Route 16 and heading north on US 19 towards the bridge.  By the time the ranger was able to turn around he had lost sight of the vehicle. He radioed ahead, and another ranger located the Scion in the Canyon Rim Visitor Center parking lot. Both rangers conducted a hasty search of bridge access points and soon spotted the man climbing over the security fence that blocks access to the bridge catwalk (the catwalk extends the entire length of the bridge under the main deck and was intended for maintenance crew access to the structure’s framework). They followed the man onto the catwalk and located him about halfway across the bridge, standing on a six-inch-wide support beam. The rangers approached the distraught man and got within about 10 feet of him before he told them not to come any closer or he would jump. Winds were gusting up to 25 miles per hour and the temperature on the rain slick catwalk was in the upper 20’s. The rangers talked to the man for 45 minutes, trying to convince him to come back onto the catwalk and talk. After a while, they were able to get the man talking. Eventually he told them that “this would be easier if you weren't here.” They continued talking to him, and he told them, “You are going to go home tonight and have to tell this horrible story to your family.” The rangers kept working at persuading him to come back onto the catwalk, and he suddenly did so. The rangers and a Fayette County deputy escorted the man to a waiting ambulance, which took him to a local hospital for a mental health detention.

Contact Information
Name: Jeff West, Chief Ranger