A man threatening to jump from a South Carolina bridge was coaxed off the ledge with a pizza, police say.
The man parked his vehicle on a shoulder of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge at about 6:50 a.m. Monday, and the 911 calls started rolling in, according to The Post and Courier. Several witnesses reported that the unidentified man, wearing a green T-shirt, had climbed the concrete barrier and was talking on his cellphone.
"[He’s] holding onto the cable looking like [he’s] getting ready to jump," one caller said. "There’s no other reason for him to be there."
Traffic backed up as police crews tried to talk him down, a standoff that lasted five hours, according to WCSC. Just before noon, the man told police he'd grown hungry and thirsty. They brought him a pepperoni pizza -- cooked for free by a local pie joint when managers found out what it was for -- and some water.
After about 15 minutes, the man was given pizza and captured.
That was a relief for The Post and Courier, whose reporters were very concerned about traffic:
A suicidal man and a three-car wreck conspired to create a traffic nightmare for Mount Pleasant commuters Monday morning, strangling two of the main routes out of town.
Customers at Andolini's hailed the "life-saving" pizza. An employee batted down comments that he saved the day.
"I’ve been here for nine years and nothing like this has ever happened," he told the paper. "But I’m not going to take credit for what happened. I was just doing my job."
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