Naked Guy Gets Trapped on Drawbridge

Florida firefighters nervously watch him for 2 hours
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 23, 2015 3:28 PM CDT
Naked Guy Gets Trapped on Drawbridge
   (Michael Clary)

Firefighters in Florida have rescued a naked man trapped on a raised drawbridge. The South Florida Sun Sentinel quotes witnesses as saying the unidentified man was walking across the Florida East Coast Railway railroad bridge in Fort Lauderdale yesterday morning when it began to rise, forcing him to scamper to the top, about 100 feet up. "Initially when we got here he wasn't very cooperative, he didn't want anyone to come near him and he didn't want to be rescued," says Deputy Fire Rescue Chief Timothy Heiser. "He denied any drug use." Rescuers stood by for two long hours trying to figure out a plan while the man moved around on a metal platform.

"Every time he moved, all of us that were on scene our hearts stopped, wondering if he's getting up to jump," says Heiser. "You don't know what his state of mind is." Eventually two firefighters climbed up a raised trestle and secured the man with a rope harness; the bridge was then slowly lowered back down. "He didn't have much to say," says one of the firefighters who rescued him. "He just wanted to get down." The man did say he'd been swimming in the New River, which flows under the bridge. A witness who often jogs around there says the man is a local homeless person. (More homeless stories.)

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