“I’m going to go to jail,” he later says, to which the young man operating the camera replies, “Yeah, it’s going to be awesome.” The man then climbs onto the railing. As he clings to the other side, an onlooker can be heard briefly pleading with him not to jump. At one point, a tour boat passing underneath the bridge surprises them. After 90 seconds of hesitation, the man pushes back and falls into the river, landing on his bottom. He is cheered as he starts swimming toward the south bank. A second video, shot from the south bank, shows the man jumping into the river and starting to swim toward the camera with about 12 people watching from the bridge. Witnesses say the man was walking home from the Lollapalooza music festival in Grant Park when he decided to jump into the river. Goudie himself was walking home from the festival when he saw the man – soaked and claiming to have jumped off the bridge – and tracked down the videos. There is 17 feet of clearance between the river and the underside of the double-deck bridge, but the man jumped from the upper deck so the fall was closer to 30 feet. Watch the videos… |
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Serving the Loop and Near North neighborhoods of downtown Chicago
