Crime & Safety

Jumper Talked Off Santa Margarita Parkway Bridge by Deputies

A suicidal man was saved from almost certain death after OC Sheriff Deputies talked him off the RSM Bridge. Traffic was shut down for three hours.

The motto is "To Protect and to Serve," but on Thursday night, "to Save" could have been added to the side of Orange County sheriff's deputy cruisers in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Deputies prevented an almost certain fatality when they pursuaded a suicidal man to step away from the edge of the Santa Margarita Parkway Bridge.

Deputy Walehwa of RSM police services was the first on the scene, which occurred on the east end of the bridge.

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"The deputy established a rapport with the subject and kept him talking until the crisis negotiation team from the OC sheriff's department arrived 15 to 30 minutes later," said Lt. Brian Schmutz, chief of police services in RSM. "By all accounts, he did an excellent job of calming down the subject until the crisis team arrived."

A 21-year-old man from Trabuco Canyon was taken into 72-hour protective custody and given a mental health evaluation. The call came in at 10:18 p.m., Thursday, and the event closed traffic across the bridge in both directions for about three hours.

Find out what's happening in Rancho Santa Margaritawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"There were no injuries, and it was great work by everyone involved, including the dispatcher who has to coordinate everything," Schmutz said.

The bridge, which rises about 70 feet over O'Neill Regional Park and spans Trabuco Creek, has been the site of six deaths in the past, two accidental and four suicides. The first occurred in November, 2005 when a woman trying to retrieve an item that flew out of her car hopped the interior railing thinking there was a median between the east and west spans; there is not. The last was Aug. 4, 2010, the second suicide in a four-month period.


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