Students want to make jumping off bridge illegal

Published 5:00 am Sunday, May 18, 2003

CULVER – Zach Henson looked at the figure rushing toward the water and knew something could go wrong. After jumping off one of the highest points on the Crooked River bridge, John Urbach’s body was angled, not straight like a pencil the way it should be.

Zach jumped in after his friend from the bridge rail.

Once Zach was in the water, he couldn’t see John. Other people jumped in too. But no one could find the teenager in the murky water of Lake Billy Chinook.

Several hours later, divers with Jefferson County Search and Rescue eventually located John’s body and brought it to the surface.

John Urbach, 17, died that day last summer.

Now Zach doesn’t want anyone to jump off the Crooked River bridge ever again.

Because of what happened, he decided to focus his senior project at Culver High School on bridge awareness. As part of the project, he is asking the Jefferson County Commission to consider passing a new law that would make it illegal to jump off the bridge where his friend died.

A few people said it was impossible to make jumping from the bridge illegal, the senior recalled. But he just kept working on his project, making presentations to students about bridge safety. During the presentation, he would ask for a volunteer to help him stretch out 110 feet of white twine. He believes that distance is the height from which John jumped to his death.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office can’t charge someone for merely jumping off the bridge, according to Sgt. Jim Adkins.

”Or we would have started a long time ago,” he said. ”We’ve been afraid something would happen.”

Some residents in Jefferson County describe bridge jumping as a rite of passage. Every summer teens gather near the edge of the bridge and plunge into the cool water below. Zach knows other kids have kept up the tradition, even after John died.

”It’s like a free-fall,” said Zach, 18, while sitting in the high school library earlier this week. ”Most of the times I did it, it wasn’t to cool off. It was to show off.”

But Zach thinks it might be time for the rite of passage to disappear.

”I’m a big believer in history,” he said. ”But if history is causing people to get hurt, it’s not right.”

As he sees it, other students are on his side.

Junior Baltazar, a 17-year-old junior at Culver, said he’s never been interested in jumping off the Crooked River bridge. It’s too dangerous, he said.

”They’re just taking an unnecessary risk to jump off of it not knowing anything bad could happen. You never know what the day has in store for you,” Junior said.

Culver senior Christopher Dix has jumped off the bridge, but not since John died last year.

He had never jumped from as high as John did that day.

Christopher, 18, said he has seen people do flips and dives from the same spot. He’s not sure all bridge jumping should be banned, though he thinks jumping from the higher points should be.

Having a law won’t totally stop the tradition, he said.

”But it might wake them up and let them know the dangers of it,” Christopher said.

Though Zach didn’t think the county commission would listen to him, the commissioners are taking his bridge law idea seriously.

”I have for years complained of the dangers out there,” said Commissioner Walt Ponsford. The commissioner said he would support some kind of control to prevent bridge jumping. He wonders if the county could install a covered walkway that would make it impossible for people to jump off.

Commissioner Mary Zemke is struck by the fact that some of the students who do bridge jumping support the law.

”I’d support the ordinance all the way,” she said.

Commissioner Bill Bellamy said it was ”probably a good idea,” pointing out that a law and a potential fine for jumpers wouldn’t prevent everyone from jumping.

Passing a law wouldn’t be an act of control, said Sheriff Jack Jones.

”This is an act of love,” he said. ”If he were still here today he’s have a pretty dramatic impact on the social fiber of our community.”

Yet not every bridge jumper would be stopped by law enforcement, Jones said.

”We’re not going to be able to afford to put someone on every bridge that overhangs water,” he said. ”But it does give us the tools to be able to act when we’re in those areas and we see things going on.”

The specifics of a bridge law have not yet been determined by the commission, according to Paul Hathaway, the county counsel.

Zach is pushing forward with his bridge project not just because the bridge is dangerous. He’s doing it because he lost a good friend.

”In Culver, there are no acquaintances,” he said. ”Everyone knows everybody.”

He and John were already thinking ahead to the upcoming school year when the accident happened. ”Me and him knew we were going to be state champs,” he said.

Zach did go on to become the Class 2A heavyweight wrestling

state champion this year.

During the past wrestling season he went down to the bridge and took pictures for his senior project. He photographed memorial crosses and the high point on the bridge where John jumped.

He remembers that the trip to the bridge helped put him at peace.

”It took something like this to make me realize it’s really dangerous,” he said.

Julia Lyon can be reached at 541-504-2336 or at jlyon@bendbulletin.com.