By E.B. Furgurson III
The Capital
QUEEN ANNE’S COUNTY, Md. — Boats and personnel from four agencies searched the Bay Bridge area yesterday for a person witnesses said leaped from the westbound span.
The person stopped a white 1998 Buick Century around 9:45 a.m. in the right lane, got out and jumped over the side, a witness said. Mary Ford, of Chester in Queen Anne’s County, said she wasn’t sure whether the person was a man or woman.
Ford, who works in The Capital’s Circulation Department, said she was driving westbound in the middle lane, when a truck swerved from the right lane in front of her.
“I wondered what he was doing,” she said. “Then I saw a white car stopped in the right lane. We pulled over, and the person got out of the car and just jumped. They didn’t hesitate, they just climbed right over.
“It was surreal, I didn’t believe it. You read about these things, but you never expect to see it.”
The state Natural Resources Police, Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s county fire departments, and Coast Guard responded to the scene. Command posts were set up on both shores of the bay as the departments’ boats cruised the area searching for the leaper.
Maryland Transportation Authority Police, which has jurisdiction over the bridge, would not confirm whether someone had jumped from the bridge. But a spokesman confirmed the vehicle was found on the bridge.
The search had turned up nothing by the end of the day yesterday.
Ford said she had looked as she and others tried to contact 911.
“I looked over the side and saw nothing,” she said.
She said it all happened so fast, she couldn’t tell much about the person.
“White jacket and jeans, short hair,” she said. “I thought it was a woman, but the other person in my car thought it was a man. … It all happened so fast.”
The car was stopped above the eastern boat channel of the bay, closer to the Queen Anne’s County side of the bridge than the peak of the 4.3-mile span over the main boating channel.
The leaper may be the second this week, though authorities will not confirm either incident. There was still no word from officials whether a body pulled from the bay the afternoon of May 29 near the Baltimore Light at the mouth of the Magothy River also was a victim of a bridge suicide.
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