The overpass3/13/2023 In America, every 11 minutes someone decides they would be better off dead. Students were still clustered around the window, and before I could stop myself, I opened my mouth and said, “Please stop looking…people die every day.” One of my friends, taken aback by my response, looked in my direction, “No, Lachlan, you can’t say that right now. I went down to the first floor to make sure our reception staff were okay.Īfter making sure they were okay, I took the elevator back up to the 5 th floor. People clustered together on the street and on balconies overlooking the sidewalk, gawking at the man who had just taken his own life. Across the street laid a man, unmoving, surrounded by police officers sectioning off the area. Noticing the flashing police lights, I made my way to the window and crept down. I got out of my seat and stepped out of my study room and into the 5 th floor atrium. My phone screen lit up, and I looked down. I was in a rhythm, no longer overtly stressed by the long hours spent trying to understand the pathophysiology of hundreds of different conditions. The feeling of dread remained unshakable.įour years later, I found myself inside the USF Medical School attempting some last-minute studying for course 7. The night was still young, and yet all I wanted to do was sleep. I completed my statement, and he drove me back to campus. This was true after all, nobody else was in the area. Since I did not see him jump, Sergeant Cooper had me write that I found it highly unlikely someone pushed him. Sergeant Cooper produced a pen and paper, and within 5 minutes I had recollected my version of the events. “You will not believe this, but we had another person jump from an overpass today as well…I wonder if these are related…anyways, we are here for a statement.” Are you the person who called about the jumper?” A couple minutes later, the police arrived to take my statement. He was loaded up on a stretcher and driven off. I watched from above, as a firetruck and ambulance arrived and pulled to the side of the highway. “What are his injuries? What exit do paramedics need to take? North or Southbound? I’ll start the dispatch, please stay on the line…” “I’m on Northwest 11th, but you need to send paramedics to the I-95 area below Northwest 11th.” “Do you need paramedics? And what is your location? I-95 or Northwest 11st?” “No, no, well, I didn’t see him jump but he’s lying in the gutter…” “Could you confirm, you are on the Northwest 11th overpass and just saw someone jump?” “Hi, umm, someone just jumped off an overpass. “911, what is your emergency and location?” An obvious next step, yet one that hadn’t dawned on me in my state of shock. ![]() I dialed my girlfriend, who upon picking up and hearing the distress in my voice told me to call 911. The ones who take charge and remain levelheaded, and the ones who panic. I was taught that there are two types of people in a crisis. I had been right, and yet I felt so powerless. His body, contorted in a grotesque position, could do little more than crawl. He was still alive, his arm meagerly waving up and down. Cars were whizzing by, and yet nobody had stopped. Lying in the gutter hidden from view from traffic. As I approached the edge to peer over, I attempted to soothe myself. I stopped at the top and paused my watch. ![]() I turned around and headed back up the overpass for what would be the last time. ![]() You can’t stop a suicide attempt that only plays out in your mind. Instinctively, my mind considered the worst possible outcome: the man jumping down into the traffic on I-95. This repeated itself the man slowly making his way up the overpass, me running back and forth. I ran past him, reached my turn-around point, and then started making my way back up. ‘He must be homeless,’ I thought to myself. A cursory glance revealed a disheveled man, wearing a raggedy white t-shirt, shuffling up the overpass. ![]() I saw the man for the first time on my way down. We didn’t care about how fast I ran on hill day all I needed to do was run up and down. It was a monotonous task, dulled with time and sandwiched in the middle of training weeks with no days off. I would start on campus, run to the overpass, and run up and down until I reached 10 miles. Well, practically speaking, South Florida doesn’t have hills, so my college coach and I would improvise with a highway overpass.
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