Source: joo0ey via Flickr
A Staten Island man who tried to jump to his death yesterday was saved after being pulled from the side of the Verrazano Bridge – where he was hanging by just one arm, reports Sarah Armaghan for the Daily News.
A group which included four MTA Bridges and Tunnels police officers and a maintenance worker ran to the man’s aid shortly before 1:30 p.m., when a driver traveling from the Brooklyn side alerted them to an empty car parked in the middle of the bridge’s nearly mile-long span.
“I think there might be a guy jumping off the bridge,” the unidentified motorist said before driving off, according to a source quoted by the News.
From the News:
The team of rescuers – including TBTA Officers Jared Reeves and Joseph Dalh, Lt. Cheryl DeSetto, Sgt. Michael Chiarelli and worker Guiseppe Bottamico – found a 2005 Mercury Grand Marquis idle in the right lane on the west-bound lower level with its hazard lights flashing.
They then spotted a 51-year-old man, identified by a law-enforcement source as Aleksandr Skor, hanging by one arm from a steel girder, dangling nearly 230 feet above the Narrows.
“You’re trying to pull him back over but you don’t want to go too far because he just might freak out and let go,” the source explained. “It’s a very fine line between losing this guy and saving him.”
Within the space of several minutes, the MTA employees managed to grab hold of Skor’s torso and pull him to safety.
He was transported to Staten Island University Hospital-North for medical attention, according to FDNY officials.