No one would pay the Toll?
According to one of the articles I read, the bridge in question is controlled remotely, apparently from Tallahassee, which makes the question a little different, obviously. There may have been no way for someone on the scene to lower it…but did they try to get hold of whoever could, in Tallahassee?
Possibly, they were concerned that moving the bridge again would jostle her loose?
Maybe it’s pleasant not to have empathy. I guess there would always be someone else’s suffering to brighten my day.
WRT all the people asking why she was holding herself up like that and why she was on the bridge in the first place, if you watch the video you’ll see a few people drinking what appear to be beers (or Smirnoff type drinks) so I’m going to guess alcohol was involved. 5K + drinking on a nice sunny afternoon = climbing a drawbridge!
Glad she’s OK.
So I’m the only one who thinks that blouse looks ridiculous on a 55 year old woman?
I’m not the most empathetic person in the world, and I love gallows humor, but this wasn’t particularly amusing to me. Not because I was worried that she was going to fall off and die–just because I don’t see what’s supposed to be funny. The pose? The clothes? Both? If so, it just doesn’t click with me.
It was a fundraising/awareness walk for Breast Cancer charity - for which the signature colour is pink. I imagine what she’s wearing is not her everyday attire.
Aside from the reasons already given, those boats can’t stop on a dime. Lowering the bridge could have caused more harm to the people in the oncoming boat. In Louisiana, it’s not uncommon to get stuck (in you car) behind these damn bridges for an hour or so.
20min is actually a good response time.
I think she looks more like a Space Invader than Jesus.
22 foot drop to water?
Derek and Clive said it best. Derek & Clive - Jump you fucker jump! - YouTube
[quote=“Amateur_Barbarian, post:12, topic:671117”]
[LIST=1]
[li]She was crossing a rail bridge not intended for pedestrians.[/li][li] She ignored the adjacent pedestrian walkway.[/li][li]Few bridges suddenly and unexpectedly raise; IME the bells and lights and warnings go on for quite some time - plenty of time to take action including a sprightly advance to a rear-guard position.[/li][/QUOTE]
I hate to ruin a fun IMHO thread with a GQ question (sorry–but this is the Dope, after all… 
)–but I’m curious: How fast does a drawbridge move as it opens?
It seems to me that if if I were walking on a surface that suddenly starts to move, my instinct would be to start running towards something stable. Or isn’t that feasible in this case?
Speculation: If there is a truss structure underneath the railway and the hinge is directly on the canal bank, when you raise the span to 90 degrees, the truss structure will stick out over the canal, reducing the navigable width. To avoid this you move the hinge away from the canal, but then you get the occasional pedestrian who looks like a pinned insect dressed like a superhero.
Yeah, me too. It’s just not my type of humor. Maybe once someone remixes the footage with an autotune track and throws in some cats, I’ll crack up over it.
Eh, just venial sin. Some time in Purgatory dangling a respectable height above the hellpit
On the “out” side of this drawbridge, not to water, but to road aggregate, steel and wood: to the railroad tracks that leads TO the bridge, and the support structures for the bascule.
Plus, you never high-dive into water where you don’t know what’s below.
Same, I don’t find it particularly funny, either.
It’s good that she’s fine and uninjured, but it looks like other’s have perished due to the same bridge, as well. I wonder what it is about that bridge, since any I’ve seen like that have tons of warnings.
On the pleasure scale, I’d say it beats not having a sense of humor.
the railroad should turn this into a PSA.
As opposed to being a self-righteous prig?
It beats that any day.
It’s just kind of funny because of the way she is dressed.