Dreadful Drop
A man apparently intent on punishing his estranged wife jumped off of the Don Mills bridge onto the busy westbound lanes of Highway 401 holding his five-year-old daughter Sunday night.
The father, said to be in his late 30s, left a suicide note and repeatedly called his spouse threatening to kill himself and their young child.
To the horrified eyes of those watching on the busy highway, he attempted to follow through on his warnings.
But miraculously, the little girl survived. She was rushed to the Hospital for Sick Children and is in guarded condition. She was talking when she arrived and officials said she had suffered internal bleeding, but doctors managed to stop it.
And amazingly, no cars hit the child, or her father, who was pronounced dead at the scene, and the little girl somehow didn't suffer any broken bones.
Police were aware of the man’s terrible intentions but weren't able to reach him in time. Insp. Brian O’Connor described the suspect as a “loaded missile” and said he had a history of mental health issues.
“He was going to kill himself and take his daughter to punish his wife for whatever he thought she had done wrong in the relationship,” he said.
The numerous threatening phone calls the man made to his estranged spouse could be considered a form of “psychological torture,” O’Connor said. The woman called police around 4:30pm Sunday to let them know about her husband's terrible plan and investigators desperately tried to find him.
“Officers at that time tried to use some methods to track down the location the cell phone was being used from,” he said.
Then, at around 5:45pm, a citizen called police to tell them she saw a man on a cell phone holding a girl on the Don Mills bridge.
Officers responded and arrived at the scene, but he pushed his daughter over the edge, then jumped from the bridge before they could reach him.
The officers ran down to the highway to stop traffic.
Several other people, including some drivers, saw the disturbed father hold his child out over the busy highway.
Daren Deonarine was on his way back to London as he watched the drama unfold. He immediately pulled over and tried to offer aid for the young victim.
"We saw that her eyes were open, she was breathing," he recalled. "So I got my kids' blanket and covered the child. She wanted to say something but I never really got any words out of her ... How that kid survived is beyond me."
O’Connor said the family was split but the man did have legal access to the child and did have her for the day Sunday. Right now, authorities don't believe this was an abduction.
So far, authorities haven’t released any names, but Deonarine is sure there was a guardian angel watching over the youngster. "If she made it and this adult didn't make it," he remarked, "it can only be a miracle."
To see unedited video of O'Connor, click here.
March 7, 2005
http://www.pulse24.com/News/Top_Sto...06-008/page.asp
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