What would you do at witnessing someone about to jump from the Coronado Bay Bridge?
Consider the tale of real estate appraiser Bryan Knowlton, a 42-year-old resident of Kearny Mesa. On Thursday, May 12, Knowlton left his office near home and headed for Coronado, where he had an 11:00 a.m. appraisal appointment. “It was about 10:30 as I was driving over the bridge,” he tells me. “I like to arrive a little early to take pictures of surrounding properties.
“But traffic was backed up, and everybody was trying to get out of the right lane to go around a parked car. Driving by, I saw a lady looking over the wall, and there was a big bottle of wine on her hood and a smaller bottle of beer.”
In an instant, Knowlton decided to get out and talk to the woman. He pulled up a few feet beyond her car and went back. “I walked up and looked over the side,” he says, “and I said to her, ‘Man, this is scary up here.’ I started asking how she was doing and so on. She told me her car was broken down, though it was still running, and then she walked around to take the keys out of the ignition. And I asked if I could just hang out with her a while. I was trying to stay close the whole time so I could grab her if I needed to. I asked her if she had any kids ’cause I have a couple of my own. And did she have any other family? So I was talking to her and talking to her, but she wasn’t having any of it. She only kept mentioning that her car broke down. She said, ‘I’m waiting for a tow truck, and they’re on their way, and I’d like to just wait here by myself.’ ‘You know,’ I told her, ‘I just don’t feel comfortable with that. Can I hang out with you? I’ll have some drinks with you and chill out.’ At that point, she seemed to be getting bored with me and said, ‘All I want you to do is leave.'”
Read the entire San Diego Reader article here.
