Jump from the bridge to death two. Extreme jump paid with life

Blogger samsebeskazal says: “I didn’t know, but it turns out that every four days someone attempts suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. This makes it the most popular place to settle accounts with life in New York.

65 meters to the water and the absence of a high barrier create the illusion that you can easily solve all your problems with just one jump. True, according to forensic experts, most first break their bones, hitting the water, and then drown, reflexively fighting for their lives, so this option of parting with problems can hardly be called easy and painless.

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Statistics report that last year there were 76 suicide attempts on the bridge, 18 of which were completed. Unfortunately, these numbers are increasing from year to year. Most suicides can be dissuaded from jumping, but the number of attempts is so high that saving lives has become a routine for police officers working on the bridge.

Last spring, two men jumped off a bridge less than a minute apart. One jumped from the bottom, and the second from the top tier. They did not know each other, but it so happened that they parted ways in the same place and almost at the same time.

In the entire history of only four people were able to survive after the jump. One girl, having jumped from the bridge, broke half of her bones, but remained alive. She was dragged ashore and taken to the hospital, where she spent the next year. When she was finally discharged, the first thing she did was get into the car, drive to the bridge, and jump again. This time already "successfully".

In 2009, a 29-year-old naval academy cadet and water polo player jumped off a bridge but suffered no serious injuries other than a couple of bruises and swam to shore on his own. More recently, a 25-year-old New Jersey resident jumped off the bridge and also survived, escaping with only a broken leg. It was possible to save her thanks to a diver who at that moment was working under the bridge, where he was looking for the body of the previous jumper.

Boat with divers at the eastern pillar of the bridge.

They write that the problem with suicides can be solved only by building a high fence along the entire bridge. The cost of such a fence is estimated at about $40 million, and it will be ready only in 2022. Up to this point, they only promise to increase the number of patrols and install more cameras. I don’t know what they were going to increase there, but I never saw a single cop on the bridge.

Despite all the problems and stresses associated with living in a big city, the suicide rate in New York is quite low: only 7 per 100,000 people. For comparison: the national level is twice as high - 13 suicides per 100,000 people. The most dangerous state in this regard is Montana. There, 20 out of 100 thousand of its inhabitants part with their lives.

In the vicinity of the city of Kamensk-Uralsky, a young couple crashed to death, who committed extreme jump on the ropes from the road bridge. The girl and the guy paid 200 rubles for the "adrenaline", but the entertainment organizers could not ensure the promised safety of the flight. The investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Sverdlovsk Region is investigating the circumstances of the tragedy.

The incident occurred on June 13 at about seven o'clock in the evening on the Kamensky bridge, located on the fifth kilometer of the "Southern Bypass" highway. Thrill-seekers who are keen on rope-jumping (rope-jumping) regularly gather here. Fans of this sport, for the sake of a few seconds of free fall, tie themselves with a climbing rope and jump from various objects - bridges, abandoned buildings, rocks, towers. The Kamensky Bridge, which is 25 meters high, traditionally attracts both organizers extreme entertainment, and those who like to tickle their nerves for a relatively low fee. Jumps for those who are "professional" interested in rope jumping or want to get this kind of thrill for the first time, have been organized here for several years on the weekend dedicated to June 12th.

The ranks of jumpers are often joined by those who initially did not plan to "fly", but simply passed by. This is exactly what happened to 22-year-old resident of Yekaterinburg Konstantin and 20-year-old Svetlana from Verkhnyaya Pyshma, who witnessed extreme jumps while rafting down the Iset River flowing under the Kamensky Bridge on a catamaran. Young people went up to the organizers of the entertainment and found out that even without experience they can make the jump - and for a completely symbolic amount.

“So, having received money in the amount of 200 rubles from a 20-year-old girl and a 22-year-old man, these persons attached ropes equipped with belts to them, and, without calculating the height of the fall and the length of the rope, gave the command to jump, after which the young man and the girl jumped from the bridge and crashed on the ground," the official statement from the media relations department of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Sverdlovsk Region says.

Operatives from the Internal Affairs Directorate of Kamensk-Uralsky and investigators from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation went to the place of the emergency. Today, the Kamensk-Uralsky Interdistrict Investigation Department of the Regional Investigative Committee of the UPC RF opened a criminal case under Part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Provision of services that do not meet the requirements of consumer safety, resulting in the death of two persons through negligence”). Now the investigation will have to find out whether the organizers are to blame for the death of a young couple. Since the jump was commercial, then, in theory, they should be responsible.

Local media immediately outlined the circle of "suspects", including the two most popular rope jumper groups in the Sverdlovsk region - "Arkhangelov" and "Red Helmet". The head of the latter refused to take responsibility for the death of a young couple, saying that he himself was an eyewitness to the tragedy, since at the time of the fall of the young man and girl he was under the Kamensky bridge. According to him, the organizers from another group fixed the rope for the fatal jump. However, the "Archangels" did not take the blame either, shifting the arrows to nameless amateurs who decided to earn extra money on holidays.

Representatives of another rope jumping club operating in the Urals, MADS, also denied involvement in the emergency. "We have nothing to do with the latest events that took place on the bridge in Kamensk-Uralsky, so we refrain from commenting," they wrote on their website.

Opinions that the hand of amateurs who are not related to the clubs are felt here are also shared by participants in thematic Internet forums. “Recently, I heard from a friend that there were a lot of ignoramuses who didn’t think a bit with their heads, and even threw people off for money. They don’t even insure the main rope, but only 150-200 rubles per jump. It’s a pity guys, but here, apparently, the result of such an illiterate approach, "wrote a forum member under the nickname RC Vincenzo, who repeatedly jumped from Kamensky.

According to another Ural jumper, Yegor Novoselov, the tandem jump could have been the cause of the tragic outcome. "I would exclude versions with all sorts of breaks. In my opinion, one of the reasons may be an error in choosing a rope. If you jumped together on a dynamic rope, you did not calculate the total weight, and it simply stretched out from a heavy load. The result is a tangential impact on the ground ", he thinks.

Recall that in Novosibirsk in January of this year, 27-year-old Denis Gavrilov crashed to death, who fell from the 16th floor of a high-rise building under construction along Dusi Kovalchuk Street. Together with his friends, he entered the closed facility in order to explore the place for future jumps. However, while photographing the proposed site, he accidentally stumbled and fell off high altitude.

Head of the NSU tourist club, master of sports international class, two-time champion USSR according to mountain tourism Vladimir Yudin said then that the danger of slips exists not only in such newfangled sports as jumping, but also in mountaineering, and even in gymnastics. However, there are several factors that increase the likelihood of a tragedy: neglect of insurance, overestimation of one's capabilities and underestimation of the environment.

Many experts agree that with proper organization and compliance with all safety measures, rope jumping is considered a fairly safe hobby, unlike the same bungee jumping, when the jump is carried out on a rubber rope. However, you need to understand what risk lurks in such hobbies, even if all the rules are followed.

The first rope jump was made in 1989 by American rock climber Dan Osman. Despite rich experience, he died during a risky jump at the age of 35. During the investigation, it was found that the jumper made a mistake in the calculations.

Even from a great height - and both of these bridges are over 30 meters - the water seems so gentle and not dangerous. Especially when the summer scorching heat is around and the brains are already fairly washed with alcohol. Many, and especially young people, think that jumping is just a couple of trifles.

And here it is not. Nobody canceled the laws of physics, and in order not to get injured when falling into the water, you need to be an extremely trained person, who perfectly knows how to enter a dense aquatic environment with a minimum contact area.

Why, one wonders, is the largest tower for official sports competitions in diving - 10 meters? That's right - for safety. It is believed that this is the maximum height at which an athlete diving headfirst into the water will not receive at the time of entry hard hit. He simply does not have time to gain such a falling speed when hitting the water becomes deadly.

True, there are two more sports for extreme people related to diving - cliff diving and high diving. The only difference is that the first one is jumping into the sea and reservoirs from rocks, and the second one is from artificial towers. High diving international competitions. The height of the jumps is 27 meters for men and 20 for women.

All high divers are former international class athletes who ended their careers in big sport. They have the highest jumping training, which cannot be compared with any amateur athletes, even if they once studied in youth schools. And then these trained people are afraid to perform at heights of more than 30 meters.

But our countrymen "knee-deep sea." The boy boldly stepped off the Voroshilovsky Bridge, expected to jump like a “soldier” (feet into the water), but the lack of preparation let him down - he slapped his back and ass, got injured. The guy who died near Volgodonsk generally decided to spin somersaults, not realizing that entering the water from such a height with his head was an instant knockout and inevitable death.

Any height is dangerous, and there are only isolated cases in the world when people who fell into the water from extreme heights remained alive and healthy. But these are just a few happy accidents over several centuries. Therefore, it should be clear to any enthusiast from somewhere to see that high bridges across navigable rivers are not springboards, but jumping from them is not a sport, and even less “cool”, but a good way to settle scores with life, or become disabled in the prime of life .

FROM THE EDITOR. A special opinion on this matter was expressed by our new columnist Sofa Professor Vishnetskaya. We are sincerely sorry about what happened, but we must talk about it.