Woman survives Skyway plunge

By CHRIS TISCH

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001

A Largo woman survived after either falling or jumping 50 feet off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and then treading water for about six hours Wednesday.

A crabber found the 59-year-old woman in the bay about 1.6 miles south of the bridge.

She was treated for hypothermia and transported to Bayfront Medical Center. She will be forced to undergo psychiatric treatment under Florida's Baker Act.

But authorities say they don't know whether the woman jumped or fell. Though Hillsborough County sheriff's investigators have spoken with her, she hasn't helped them unravel the mystery, said Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman Lt. Rod Reder.

"She's not helping," he said. "She wasn't making sense."

The Times typically does not identify people committed under the Baker Act.

Deputies said the chain of events began early Wednesday morning when the woman apparently drove her vehicle onto the bridge and struck a retaining wall about six-tenths of a mile south of the center span.

Florida Highway Patrol troopers found her vehicle about 4:10 a.m. and looked on the bridge, but found no sign of the woman.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the sheriff's marine unit were summoned to search the waters. They found no sign of her. The crabber found the woman about 10 a.m.

Reder said there is about a 50-foot drop to the water in the area where the woman is thought to have gone over the bridge.

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