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Holy crap!
Mar. 9th, 2005 01:30 pmApparently, someone decided that blowing the light at a swing bridge would be a good idea.
Note to those who don't want Darwin Awards: If you're on a bridge, and the light turns red, you should stop. Unless, like this particular individual, you want to be in your car when it drops fifty feet because you drove off an open bridge.
You can't tell from the picture, but this car looks to have been reduced to about a third of its original height. All of us at work, hearing the sirens (and having![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stannius come tell us) went out to gawk. We left shortly after the Medical Examiner arrived.
For those of you who know the area, this was from the lower West Seattle bridge (Spokane Street), the car actually landed on Harbor Island, about 150 metres from my office. KOMO TV is reporting that from the air, "video also shows skid marks on the edge of the bridge and what appear to be broken warning gates on the bridge deck.
A witness told KOMO 4 News that they were waiting at the gate when a car went around them on the left, through the gates, then off the end of the bridge."
Here's a picture from their screen cap:
You can see part of the gate just past the car there.
Update: "Witnesses tell KOMO 4 News that they were parked behind the Harbor Island-side warning gates when a man in a Volkswagen Jetta drove past on the left shoulder at an estimated speed of 50 mph, then crashed through the first wooden gate and a secondary metal gate before falling off the end of the bridge.
The car fell 50 feet to the ground below just west of the railroad tracks, killing the driver."
No idea yet if intoxicants were involved or if this was a successful suicide attempt.
Note to those who don't want Darwin Awards: If you're on a bridge, and the light turns red, you should stop. Unless, like this particular individual, you want to be in your car when it drops fifty feet because you drove off an open bridge.
You can't tell from the picture, but this car looks to have been reduced to about a third of its original height. All of us at work, hearing the sirens (and having
stannius come tell us) went out to gawk. We left shortly after the Medical Examiner arrived.For those of you who know the area, this was from the lower West Seattle bridge (Spokane Street), the car actually landed on Harbor Island, about 150 metres from my office. KOMO TV is reporting that from the air, "video also shows skid marks on the edge of the bridge and what appear to be broken warning gates on the bridge deck.
A witness told KOMO 4 News that they were waiting at the gate when a car went around them on the left, through the gates, then off the end of the bridge."
Here's a picture from their screen cap:
You can see part of the gate just past the car there.
Update: "Witnesses tell KOMO 4 News that they were parked behind the Harbor Island-side warning gates when a man in a Volkswagen Jetta drove past on the left shoulder at an estimated speed of 50 mph, then crashed through the first wooden gate and a secondary metal gate before falling off the end of the bridge.
The car fell 50 feet to the ground below just west of the railroad tracks, killing the driver."
No idea yet if intoxicants were involved or if this was a successful suicide attempt.
