Sunshine Skyway Bridge - Bridge Suicides

Bridge Suicides

According to compilations from various media reports as of 2009, at least 207 people have committed suicide by jumping from the center span into the waters of Tampa Bay since the opening of the new bridge in 1987, and an estimated 34 others have tried, but survived. A Rottweiler named Shasta survived after either following or being carried over the edge by its owner, who died. Another 51 people ended their lives from the old Sunshine Skyway from 1954 to 1987. One man (23 year old Michael "Luciano" Plezia of Cleveland) was forced to jump at gunpoint in 1981, after having been kidnapped, beaten, tortured, and stabbed.; another, a 24 year old Sarasota carpenter, hanged himself from the bridge on Saturday morning, 4 July 1992. Several other missing persons are suspected of having jumped from the bridge, but their deaths could not be confirmed as no bodies were recovered.

In response to the bridge's popularity as a method of demise for the depressed, the state of Florida installed six crisis hotline phones along the center span in 1999, and began 24-hour patrols. As of 2003, the call center received 18 calls from potential jumpers, all of whom survived, according to a St. Petersburg Times report. However, the total number of jumpers has not significantly declined since the introduction of these safeguards.

On April 27, 1997, a group of amateur daredevils, led by a bartender from Ft. Lauderdale and composed of a mix of male and female participants, performed an unannounced guerrilla "pendulum swing" bungee jump off the bridge, wherein they planned to swing back and forth on a home-made bungee cord made of steel cable attached to the cast-off point. Arriving by stretch limousine, the group unexpectedly pulled over at the apex of the bridge, quickly rigged up their cable, tethered themselves to it with harnesses, and jumped over the edge. This stunt failed when the plastic sheathing on the steel cable, unable to handle the increase in gravitational forces exerted on it by the initial pendulum swing, sheared off and allowed the connecting clamps to slide freely off the cable, plunging the jumpers 60 feet (18 m) into the water, leading to broken bones and neck injuries. The entire accident was caught on multiple video cameras that had been set up to record the feat.

When later interviewed for a television video program, the group's leader stated that all of the components were rated to handle the combined weight of the participants, and, at the time, he thought the assembly was safe. Later studies showed that his design had failed to take into account the increased g-load caused by the pendulum action of the jump itself, exceeding the ratings on the components and leading to catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of the bungee cable. Since the accident, no other groups have attempted to perform a stunt jump from the bridge. This incident aired on Destroyed In Seconds on March 2, 2009.

In 2006, a feature film entitled Loren Cass was released, which depicted a suicide jump off the Sunshine Skyway. Two years later, a second filmmaker, Sean Michael Davis of Rhino Productions, was inspired by his haunting experience witnessing a woman jump off the bridge so quickly that no one could intervene, to create a non-for-profit film titled Skyway Down. His objectives: to deter other potential jumpers by " 'punch them in the face' with interviews with survivors and family members", to give them "hope and to try to de-glorify the romanticism of the bridge", in part by informing those who have "mulled a leap to know about the bloody, battered aftermath."

Corporal Gary Schluter of the Florida State Highway Patrol - who has "seen the number of suicides, and attempts, climb steadily over the last few years" at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, as well as persuaded multiple would-be suicides at that site to live - advises: "People look at that water and think it's very serene, an easy way to die." But "it's more like hitting concrete." As he and other troopers explained to The New York Times reporter Rick Bragg, "Jumpers tend to die ugly. The fall, less than four seconds, ends in a bone-snapping, organ-rupturing trauma, but some jumpers do not lose consciousness, and drown in agony." Schluter elaborated: "We retrieve the bodies. They are distorted, mangled."

On October 12, 2009, a body was found in the trunk of a burning car. Witnesses saw a man carrying a gas can near the car. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper later saw the man jump from the bridge, to his death. After an investigation, authorities deemed the deaths a murder-suicide. The jumper, Robert Cecil Laird, shot his ex-wife, Sheryl Laird (39), multiple times at her home in Lakeland before depositing her body in the vehicle's trunk and driving approximately 60 miles to the bridge, where he set the car afire and jumped to his death.

Stopping on the bridge for any non-emergency (including sightseeing) is prohibited. As part of a controlled-access highway, pedestrians and bicycles are also prohibited. Traffic on the bridge is remotely monitored by the Florida Highway Patrol, and a stopped or illegal vehicle or a pedestrian will elicit a police dispatch.