Really Fucked-up shit

Okay, I am probably going to avoid humor here as I recount the craziest thing I have ever seen. This weekend I went to NY for my best friend's surprise birthday party (it turned out to be a dual party - it was my surprise party too - SURPRISE!) Anyway, my family and I left NY at about 10AM and headed back for Cleveland. It was a pretty standard trip (stopping for food and diaper changes - but no traffic or bad weather). Well that all changed when we got to Cleveland... when the craziest thing I have ever seen occurred.

It was 3:30PM when we hit downtown, this was way before rush hour so I expected no delays. Well, we got almost to downtown and things slowed way down. I was like, oh great there must be an accid.. "OH SHIT!!" A guy - a mother fucking guy just bolted from the dividing wall out into traffic. It happened really fast but I saw a black male in black clothes run from the median into the center lane (of the 3 West Bound lanes). All 3 lanes of traffic were stopped - fast. "Holy shit honey - call 911!!!" We were in the center lane, about 4-5 cars back. He was either under or infront of the school bus in the center lane. I left a huge gap between me and the car infront of me. In the brief glimpse I got - I saw TOTAL crazy. If he came towards my car... well I wanted some run up room infront of me.

We sat for a minutes... and I thought - what must the bus driver be telling the kids? Finally the guy emerges and moves into the left lane of traffic. He is standing in the Jesus Christ pose. I can see he has on black pants and a black button up shirt. All of the buttons are undone and he has a white TShirt on underneath. The TShirt is covered in a stain from a spilled beverage or vomit. This image rapidly replaces "guy bolting into highway traffic" as "the craziest thing I have ever seen."

911 tells my wife they have already been called and have a unit on the way. Becasuse the guy is covering the left lane the right lane starts moving very cautiously and the bus starts to move too. But the bus doesn't just get the hell out of there - no he starts to pull to the right shoulder? WTF? Are you using these kids as bait? Suddenly, the guy is gone? Let me be clear - at this point on the highway there are 6 lanes and one cement wall dividing the 3 Eastbound lanes from the 3 Westbound lanes. There is no where to hide. "OH SHIT! there he is - in the back of the pickup" The previous "craziest thing I have ever seen" has its title taken after only about 90 seconds.

The guy is in the back of a red pickup truck that he jumped into. Traffic starts moving. My wife is trying to figure out why the pickup guy isn't stopping. I tell her he probably assumes its a car-jacker. The driver is moving at about 50-60MPH and the guy in the back is standing Titanic "King of the World" style (goodbye "craziest thing I have ever seen record" hello new one). The driver is making his way to the right side of the road. However, this is a bit of a trial because on the Inner-Belt bridge in Cleveland there are about 3 entrances to the highway in about 1/2 a mile. Some of these just add lanes to the width of the highway - so it is about 6 lanes wide (in the WestBound direction). My wife is yelling to stay back - in case he falls out. The last entrance onto the bridge is Ontario St. A huge Chevy Avalanche comes up that ramp and is trying to prevent me from moving into the right lane - listen fuck-o we've got a situation here that you aren't fully up to speed on. I punch it and cut him off. (I can see the huge array of ground effects and branch guards in my rear view - about 2 feet away). I am intentionally taking up 2 lanes now - if the guy falls no one merging will have any idea that they should be attempting to dodge.

The pickup makes it to the right-most lane and starts to slow (record breaking time again). The car gets down to about 30MPM and the guy hangs his legs out and bails. Yep, he jumps out of the car on the fucking highway going at least 30MPH!!! This quickly takes top honors as the craziest thing I have ever seen. We go by the guy and he hops the rail that protects people on the sidewalk from the highway. I can see he is bleeding from his head. I have just long enough to say, "guy don't do it" before we drive by. When my wife turns around he is gone.

I guess I really didn't see it - but it is still the craziest thing I have ever seen. The guy jumped off the bridge. Now I knew this meant certain death - but I didn't understand the scope until I walked to work today and looked at the bridge. I tried to find a good picture, but I couldn't. Here is a different bridge that goes over the same waterway (this one is slightly lower than the Innerbelt Bridge) picture.

It was totally fucked up. My wife called the police again and told them what happened. We watched the news last night and this morning. But there was no story...