Earlier tonight

http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/video/6506411/

This is the second incident of someone jumping the divider to help after an accident and falling to their death below.

Here is the one in 2005.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/120500/

11/27/2009 11:25:49 PM

sad... hard to comprehend how this could happen.

[Edited on November 27, 2009 at 11:31 PM. Reason : s]

11/27/2009 11:29:31 PM

sad stories there.

i don't see why they don't just put up a small fence on this inside barrier like they do on the outside of the road.

11/27/2009 11:30:33 PM

That's sad. Sounds like a little chain link fence could have prevented it.

11/27/2009 11:31:26 PM

I can see how in the dark you could mistake it for just being a divider like it is all the way along without a hole in the middle. Especially if you were rushing to an accident.

11/27/2009 11:34:26 PM

It looks like they put up a fence, but only on one side. Hard to tell from google street view. That really sucks though.

11/27/2009 11:50:26 PM

sweet way to get into heaven, if it exists

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

11/28/2009 12:15:25 AM

wait... don't they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

11/28/2009 12:20:12 AM

i hate that saying.


i think it's supposed the idea of unintended consequences.
it's supposed to be mean "plan better actions"
it's not literal.

(under the assumption you believe in hell)


this story is sad


[Edited on November 28, 2009 at 8:55 AM. Reason : i think...]

11/28/2009 8:54:43 AM

Wow ... whos genius idea was that barrier ??

I would be suing like a mofo from hell if it happened to me

11/28/2009 9:38:10 AM

11/28/2009 9:55:13 AM

hard to sue from the grave

11/28/2009 10:26:19 AM

NEEDS

MORE

CAT

LEAP

11/28/2009 10:30:14 AM

that is a shame, RIP man

11/28/2009 11:00:29 AM

so you guys think its totally normal behavior to jump from one side of an overpass to the other beneath the curtain of night? come to think of it I can't think of a bridge anywhere with a thing to prevent people from jumping, except the ones that people normally visit yo commit suicide.

im astraladvent and and I approved this message

11/28/2009 1:36:16 PM

The Golden Gate Bridge has suicide phones and signs, no barrier though.

11/28/2009 2:17:58 PM

Nah, go look at it man. It doesn't look like a bridge. It looks like normal elevated freeway, the trees even stretch across the creek so it looks just like woods on each side. Definitely an easy mistake to make.

11/28/2009 3:27:06 PM

i thought i read he was jumping out of the way to avoid another car that was part of a chain reaction

11/28/2009 3:37:37 PM

well you're pretty stupid then, aren't you.

11/28/2009 3:40:00 PM

Quote :

"i thought i read he was jumping out of the way to avoid another car that was part of a chain reaction"

actually the article said they jumped across to get out of the way of traffic.

11/28/2009 4:01:21 PM

He actually did jump to get out of the way of an approaching car......he probably though the other side of the freeway was over the barrier.

Quote :

"The written police report on the accident said the man had stopped to help after three vehicles collided on the beltline between Six Forks Road and Glenwood Avenue. As other motorists swerved to avoid the crash, the man jumped over a concrete barrier to escape a car that hurtled toward him. On the other side of the barrier was a shear drop to Crabtree Creek, and the man fell to his death."

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local_state/story/214724.html

11/28/2009 4:32:35 PM

Sounds like this guy needs his own page on the Darwin awards.

11/28/2009 5:00:41 PM

11/28/2009 6:40:03 PM

there's a car coming towards me so I'll just hop over this here barrier that obstructs my path to certain doom.

11/28/2009 6:44:07 PM

11/28/2009 7:08:42 PM

11/28/2009 7:21:37 PM

Justin and I were on our way to Trader Joes shortly after this happened, and saw how bad traffic was backed up. Just heard on the news the whole story--terrible

Quote :

"Sounds like this guy needs his own page on the Darwin awards."

damn man, you are such an asshole

[Edited on November 28, 2009 at 7:58 PM. Reason : ]

11/28/2009 7:55:29 PM

Quote :

"there's a car coming towards me so I'll just hop over this here barrier that obstructs my path to certain doom."

On second thought, let me stand here in the path of impending doom.

11/28/2009 7:56:14 PM

jesus what a way to go...especially thinking he was hurdling the barrier to safety from an on coming car. That split-second moment he realizes there is nothing below him was probably sheer terror. I can't even imagine.

Is the creek below full to where death was by drowning or is it a basin and he basically hit solid ground?

11/28/2009 8:55:26 PM

the greenway trail is following alongside right there...so it could've been the ground or the creek, but the creek is not very deep there

11/28/2009 9:12:57 PM

Am i the only one who in general thinks its a bad idea to jump off overpasses? I wasn't aware that overpasses generally have picnic ledges for people to chill on. I can accept that, but am i the only one who doesn't jump off ledges when i definitely can't see whats on the other side? Okay i'll accept that too. Am i also the only one who when i pull over in the middle of night in a fully functional car doesn't turn on my flashers or something to alert other people to slow down / use other lanes? okay i'll accept that too



sure everything happened in half of a split fucking second but if you don't have a little bit of sense maybe you shouldn't be helping anyone else out fire/ambulance response time isn't thaaat bad. Its not like they were in the middle of the desert.

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

11/28/2009 9:44:30 PM

This guy thought he was jumping over a wall in between the two sides of the road, he had no way to see that there was an opening in between two walls.

Quote :

"Eames apparently did not realize there was a gap between the two lanes that opens below to Crabtree Creek, police said. He fell 70 feet to the creek and died. A second man, who also jumped, survived the fall with cuts and bruises."

11/29/2009 12:37:34 AM

Quote :

"Am i the only one who in general thinks its a bad idea to jump off overpasses? I wasn't aware that overpasses generally have picnic ledges for people to chill on. I can accept that, but am i the only one who doesn't jump off ledges when i definitely can't see whats on the other side?"

What are you talking about? This is what it looks like in BROAD DAYLIGHT (according to the map posted earlier, though I don't think it's this location because there are fences along this stretch):



-from this photo, it's not easy to tell it's an overpass. probably impossible in the dark.
-you CAN see to the other side, there's a fucking highway on the other side, there just happens to be a gap between the two sides...

11/29/2009 7:12:12 AM

Honestly AstralAdvent is just a douchebag who likes to act like he's smarter than other people. I mean, don't get me wrong, he is clever and cool for putting his little catchphrase at the end of every one of his ridiculous posts.... I am sure he would have gotten out of the car, saved the day, stopped traffic, and made every perfect decision possible in a split second. Us mere mortals who can't accomplish these things, much less approve of our own messages just can't possibly comprehend these feats.

11/29/2009 8:56:45 AM

Let it be a lesson to always take the time to make sure that YOU are safe before you try to help others.

I think it was the raleigh fire marshal that was talking to some of us one time about safety statistics and he pointed out that in a lot of other countries, mortality rates in catastrophic situations are much higher than in the US. He attributed that to a culture of "save yourself first" in the emergency response community, contrasted to a more careless/false-hero attitude in some countries where people will just blindly rush in to a situation without taking proper precautionary measures.

Granted, this guy was not a trained emergency responder, so he did not know how to evaluate the situation, but we can at least all learn from his mistakes.

11/29/2009 10:33:18 AM

believe me i learned my lesson.

i won't be jumping off any bridges.

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

11/29/2009 12:27:37 PM

The guy who died was a neighbor of mine for a while.....really nice guy, and always willing to help someone in need. Sad Sad Sad....

11/30/2009 9:54:54 AM

why can't they just put some sort of walkway between the bridges?

11/30/2009 10:09:36 AM

^$ money. You want to pay for it?

11/30/2009 10:21:00 AM

i can't imagine it would cost that much...considering how much money they pour down the toilet every year, i'm sure a couple of thousand bucks spread out over the city's population wouldn't be that bad

11/30/2009 10:30:06 AM

If it were up to you or me, yes, we would throw some expanded metal grating down and call it a day for less than a $grand. But this is the government. They will hold feasibility studies, then bring in engineers to assess the impact on the existing structure, then have a bidding process where every contractor overestimates the cost to cover their own ass. The final product will be be made of concrete strong enough to hold 10 tons...because if you lay down any sort of flooring people expect it to hold up the world.

I figure about 10 people have to die before the cost becomes worth it.

11/30/2009 11:32:22 AM

lay chainlink fencing across the gap. cheap & quick

11/30/2009 11:33:28 AM

No engineer will sign off on that. Remember, this chain link fencing has to hold up several 400lbs americans.

11/30/2009 11:35:36 AM

lol, yeh I know what the DOT would do... but if properly anchored, that fence could hold a fatty

11/30/2009 11:36:54 AM

just add fencing to both sides of the bridge


dont even think about attempting to allow the gap to be transversable to the public

just physically bar it from occurring

[Edited on November 30, 2009 at 11:38 AM. Reason : e]

11/30/2009 11:38:29 AM

The failure of the dot to put anything down has cost someone their life. Now the law suite they will have to pay out on will cost waaaaaaaaaaay more than what it would have cost them to fix this exposure. Oh by the way....this isn't even the first person to fall through this....

11/30/2009 11:41:30 AM

I highly doubt there will be a lawsuit. That's just stupid.

11/30/2009 11:52:47 AM

^I can most certainly see a lawsuit coming from this. It is, in no way, stupid to think that someone wouldn't sue over this.

11/30/2009 11:57:13 AM

Granted the guy did have good intentions; but I hope any sort of lawsuit would be thrown out in court. This is what life insurance is for. Granted a fence could be erected to prevent any futures deaths but I do not hold Raleigh guilty for this man's error in judgement. You can keep building better fool proof safety nets but society will only create better idiots. This circumstance is unfortunante but there is no substitute for common sense.

11/30/2009 12:06:49 PM

The DOT did nothing wrong. 440 was never intended for pedestrians.

11/30/2009 1:22:52 PM