August 19

Live tweeting on a would-be Aurora Bridge jumper

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Last night, Wednesday night — Josh Trujillo, a colleague I greatly admire and used to work with at the Seattle P-I (he still does on SeattlePi.com as a photographer) tweeted live about seeing a woman hop a rail on the Aurora Bridge, in an attempt to jump. He called 911.

Reading his tweets this morning, the story ends without tragedy at about 9:30 p.m.: “Good news. Young girl on Aurora Bridge is over the rail, back on the safe side. Police boats leaving from under bridge. Amen.”

His tweets about her began about 13 hours ago, about 7:30 p.m.: “No. A girl is on the Aurora Bridge about to jump. My heart is sinking. Police not here yet.”

I know Josh, so I know how sincere he is, so I don’t question how hard this must have been for him. This is a guy who was in the Army and deployed overseas before he was a photographer. He’s a consummate professional and he’s also a family man.

The irony is, the state is installing an anti-suicide fence on the bridge, have been for awhile.

Part of Josh’s reporting shocked: “Woman on Fremont Bridge who said she was waiting in traffic for an hour just said “jump already,” loudly. Crowd upset at her.”

He showed self-consciousness at what he was seeing, and reporting: “In the news media we rarely report suicides or attempts at suicide. I feel really uncomfortable tweeting this one. This is awful.”

But he also revealed, “FYI, I used to live under the I-5 Ship Canal Bridge. A jumper once landed in my yard. That was a terrible day. Hope today is better,” and conversed with our news partner’s executive editor, the Seattle Times’ David Boardman: “@dlboardman I have to agree that this is strange ground & I have been uncomfortable reporting it. But I also saw her hop rail & called 911.”

What do you think, readers?


Tags

Aurora Bridge, suicide, suicide fence


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