Police Talk Man Down From Suicide Attempt

After nearly four hours of negotiation Wednesday, police talked a distraught man out of jumping from the top of a six-story parking structure next to UCI Medical Center in Orange.

“Thank God!” said a woman who had watched part of the drama as she waited for a bus.

The 49-year-old man recently quit his job and was upset over that and problems with his girlfriend, said Kim Pine, UCI Medical Center spokeswoman.

After police talked the man down from the building, he was admitted to the hospital’s psychiatric ward, Pine said.

Officials said they did not know why the man chose the medical center’s parking structure for the attempt, Pine said. He is neither a patient nor an employee of the center, she said.

People who had parked their cars in the structure were able to retrieve them, Pine said. But the hours-long ordeal tied up traffic on the medical center campus.

Just after 12:30 p.m., the man climbed onto a concrete ledge, where he sat precariously balanced, fidgeting and chain-smoking cigarettes. Several times he stepped down, then climbed back on the ledge.

Employees from the hospital and nearby office buildings left their desks to watch, and others, some with binoculars, stood on the sidewalk.

Motorists and pedestrians stopped to gawk. One bystander yelled “Jump!” and was escorted by police from the area.

But others expressed sympathy and said they hoped the man would come down safely.

“I said a little prayer for him,” said John Pope, 34, of Westminster, who had spent the morning in the nearby courthouse.

Terry A. McElroy, a psychiatric nurse supervisor who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said the man expressed pessimism about his future and was ready to jump.

“He said he was having personal problems and didn’t want to get into it. He was very evasive,” McElroy said. “He had feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.”