When I ignored my gut feelings

It was exactly a year ago to this day that I was driving from Sandusky, Ohio, to Fayetteville, West Virginia on my way back from Cedar Point. The weather was nearly perfect, with blue skies and warm spring air that lacked the often oppressive humidity of summers in the eastern US. The time was close to noon, and I was driving south on Interstate 77. My husband had done much of the trip’s previous driving, and so I took the wheel to give him a break. I-77 is much like so many freeways in that it is extremely monotonous with unchanging scenery along its length. There is little, if anything, to see along the way without stopping for a break. That was, until I saw a man up ahead, standing where one would never expect anyone to be. I am going to switch here to an excerpt of a past entry that describes this unnerving event when it was fresh in my mind a few days after I returned home:

“I drove on for some time, endless miles of roadway passing beneath my wheels. I was daydreaming about something, listening to the music I was streaming, when I saw a most unsettling sight just up ahead. As I approached one of so many overpasses, I noticed there was a man standing there at the edge, looking down at the traffic below. This particular overpass lacked the fencing that would keep things from falling – or being thrown – onto the road below. The man was right there, in the center, at the edge, not really doing anything but just standing and staring out over the road. He was behind the edge barrier, but up very close to it. I did not see any vehicle parked nearby, which if on that side would have been noticeable as the edge wall wasn’t very high. In fact,it was low enough that the man’s body was visible from about mid-thigh on up. I quickly said something to my husband and he glanced up and saw the man. Then I said that I thought that was a very strange sight, to which he agreed. He said it looked like the guy was getting ready to jump. I replied that I didn’t think so, that he must have just been waiting for roadside assistance. Surely his broken down vehicle was just out of sight, perhaps on the other side or just off of the overpass…

It still bothers me when I think about that. I just hope he was simply waiting for a tow and not contemplating the unthinkable. Part of me had thought about reporting it, but at the time I was in a bit of denial. That, and I was afraid my husband would think I was overreacting. In my thinking before the Key Bridge collapse, almost no one (save for the Key Bridge jumper) leaped off a bridge, and so surely no one would ever jump from a middling highway overpass – or would they?”

So it has been exactly a year since I witnessed this, and I’ve thought about it on and off ever since. In retrospect I do believe I should have called for help. True, my initial gut feeling could have been wrong, but I don’t think so. Worse yet was what happened once I got home. All of the sudden my video feed was loaded with all sorts of clips of people being rescued from jumping from overpasses, bridges, buildings and other structures. I never searched for that stuff, it just appeared. For about two or three weeks I got lots of those sorts of videos. And then, they finally disappeared, never to be seen again. It was as though I was being chided for the decision I had made! The Skyway Bridge site guy told me I shouldn’t second guess myself too much, as even if I had called, a tragic ending may have been unavoidable. I suppose he is right in that there is no sense in me ruminating over my choice because it may have done no good. That, and the past cannot be changed and one can only learn from it. But then again, I do believe I made the wrong choice. All I can do now is to try and not make that kind of poor decision again should I ever face a similar situation. I should have listened to that gut feeling instead of letting my mind deny what I was seeing. I would like to think that perhaps some other motorists did call for help that day and that the man ended up being saved. Hopefully this unknown potential jumper is alive today, and was able to get beyond whatever problems drove him to that desperate point.