June 3, 2008
Woman Takes a Brodie Off Brooklyn Bridge, Survives
A distraught 34-year-old woman threw herself from the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, plunging 100 feet from the pedestrian walkway near the Manhattan shoreline into the East River. An NYPD Harbor Unit quickly responded to the scene and pulled the suicidal woman from the water. Somehow she was relatively unscathed--without a scratch or a broken bone--and was treated at a hospital for aspirating some water, which is common in near drowning incidents.
Fewer than 10 people have ever survived a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge in its 125-year existence, including two people who jumped on separate occasion in 2004. The NYPD's Emergency Services Unit is generally in charge of dissuading people about to jump from bridges or other high places in the city; an ESU veteran claims the unit has approximately a 99% success rate of talking people to safety.
Taking a Brodie or pulling a Brodie became synonymous with insane stunts after tavern owner Steven Brodie bet his friend that he could survive a jump from the just-completed Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. He won $100 from his friend after jumping from the center of the bridge (35 feet higher than where yesterday's jump occurred). News of his death in 1898 as reported by the NY Times can be read here [pdf format].
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How in hell did she jump from the PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY into the water, clearing three lanes of traffic? Is she a superhero?
She's very lucky she survived (though she probably doesn't feel that way right now).
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The east river? A floating turd probably broke her fall
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ab bklyn:
That's exactly what I was wondering.
Once you get up a little ways, the roadway is covered by iron beams. So she may have walked on one of the beams across the roadway, from where she could've made the jump.
Either way it's crazy, and its amazing she survived.
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i've done it before, no biggie.
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"takes a brodie"?
wow - aren't you cool with your inside lingo?
can you imagine what might be going on inside someone's head where they think the only good option they have left is jumping off the fucking brooklyn bridge? i sure as hell can't - but i'm sympathetic enough of the situation to not see it as my chance to show how clever i can be.
dick.
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"Takes a Brodie" was also said in Bugs Bunny. Don't feel badly, navin, that you're not cool.
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"Suicidal" people who jump from bridges into water instead of from buildings onto pavement kinda, sorta wanna live.
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I would be suicidal too if I "lived" in bklyn.
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Actually, that Bugs cartoon spoofing Steve Brodie jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge is called Bowery Bugs and available online.
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Agree with Howboutdemcowboys - if you want to do it right, do it like that dirtbag who killed his girlfriend recently. At least he had the smarts to take an asphalt nap, and do it with flair by splitting himself in half on the flagpole.
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"How in hell did she jump from the PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY into the water, clearing three lanes of traffic? Is she a superhero?"
i think there are a couple places along the bridge where there are some bare-bones handrails such that one could walk across the roadway somewhat easily.
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Just kill your boyfriend and put him in the bathtub... oh, wait...
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There are a few beams over traffic that have handrails. It'd be scary to walk across them, but if you're going to commit suicide, I doubt you'd fear falling off. If you really wanted to do it right, you'd climb up the main cables to the top of a tower. There are wrought iron guards on the cables, but I think they'd be easy enough to get around if you're determined to kill yourself.
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Women attempt suicide in a bid for attention; men do it to kill themselves.
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Why didn't she wait for the pretty waterfall?
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So by #14's logic, when women succeed at suicide they are all, "Dammit!"