Man jumps to his death off Hoover Dam bypass bridge

By John Taylor (contact)

Published Thursday, July 12, 2012 | 12:41 p.m.

Updated Thursday, July 12, 2012 | 2:35 p.m.

A man jumped 900 feet to his death from the Hoover Dam bypass bridge on Thursday, after police tried for two hours to talk him down, officials said.

Hoover Dam Police and Metro Police were called to the Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge about 10:30 a.m. after receiving reports of a man on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway threatening to jump. Negotiators from both departments tried to talk the man out of killing himself.

At 12:30 p.m., he jumped from the Nevada side of the bridge, hitting rocks before reaching the Colorado River, officials said.

The Bureau of Reclamation, with assistance from the National Park Service, recovered the man’s body from the water.

He is the third person to jump from the bridge, which opened in October 2010.

In April, Patricia Oakley, a 60-year-old resident of San Jose, Calif., was the first person to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge.

The following month, a young Arizona man jumped to his death, Bureau of Reclamation spokeswoman Rose Davis said.

The 1,900-foot-long bypass bridge is downstream of the Hoover Dam, where it spans Black Canyon. It is the country’s second-highest bridge.

Metal railing runs most of the length of the Hoover Dam side of the pedestrian walkway, which sits 900 feet above the Colorado River.

Authorities reopened the bridge, which had been closed as the man threatened to jump, at 12:45 p.m.