GILL — An unidentified man threatening to jump off the Turners Falls-Gill Bridge was pulled to safety by a Montague police officer around 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
According to State Police Sgt. Dave McKearney, he arrived on scene and spoke to the man on the southbound side on the Turners Falls end for roughly 45 seconds before Montague Staff Sgt. Chris Williams sneaked up behind the man and removed him from danger. The man, who could be seen lying down in a cordoned-off portion of the southbound lane and talking with troopers and paramedics, was placed into protective custody and loaded into an ambulance that left the scene at 5:39 p.m.
McKearney said he did not know the man’s name, age, residence or reason for threatening to jump.
The man was seen wearing a jacket with a left arm bearing one emblem of an American flag and another of the POW/MIA flag.
There were at least four police vehicles in the vicinity of the ambulance before it left. The squad cars’ blistering lights brightened the pitch-black sky and could be seen from down the hill on Mohawk Trail. The frigid temperature was unforgiving and was beginning to freeze patches of water on the bridge. Most of the visible portions of the Connecticut River, which the bridge spans, were frozen, with sporadic large cracks in the ice’s surface.
Bridge traffic was blocked in both lanes until roughly 5:20, when authorities opened the northbound lane and directed traffic.
The call came into the Montague Police Department at 4:53 p.m., according to a dispatcher.