Body found in Hudson was GWB jumper, Port Authority police confirm

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Port Authority police today confirmed that a body found beneath the George Washington Bridge on Wednesday was that of a 49-year-old Bronx man who parked his car on the bridge last Thursday and jumped — the 10th suicide off the span this year.

Harold Olivares parked his 1998 Ford Taurus on the bridge’s upper level, climbed over two railings and plunged to the river below, witnesses told police.

A contractor working on the span summoned police around 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, the authority’s Joseph Pentangelo said.

The NYPD Harbor Unit recovered the body near the bridge’s east side, he said.

Some of the recent suicides have made headlines.

Authorities said the combination of pressures over stolen money, illegal drug use and an ongoing police investigation into an AR-15 military-style rifle stolen from a Mahwah home led a Suffern couple to kill the woman’s 70-year-old uncleand then jump off the GWB to their deaths in late April (SEE: Rockland homicide, double GWB suicides had Mahwah ties).

What often goes unreported are the rescues.

Last week, a Haworth businessman who rides his bicycle to work thwarted a Union City man who had swallowed a handful of pills and was trying to climb over the side (SEE: Bergen man pulls back would-be GWB jumper).

Last month, a despondent man climbed over the walkway railing and was balanced on the narrow outer ledge when a Port Authority police officer and an NYPD cop teamed up to grab and pull him to safety (SEE: Port Authority, NYPD officers grab suicidal man in dramatic GWB rescue).

A planned suicide was stopped last fall after Paterson police — seeing a despondent man’s social media posts — alerted their Port Authority colleagues to his apparent intentions. They got hold of him by cellphone and talked him out of it (SEE: Port Authority PD: Social media helps prevent GWB suicide).

Despite the perception that it’s a magnet for jumpers, the 82-year-old GWB is topped by several other spans throughout the world. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, for instance, had 10 last August — an average of one every three days — as part of 46 in 2013.

That said, the number of GWB jumpers has ticked up in recent years (SEE: GWB a ‘suicide magnet’?).

 

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