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The Francis Scott Key Bridge

baltimore, maryland
updated: 06.29.24
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Thoughts on the recent Key Bridge collapse and the Skyway collapse.
06.29.24, Lee R., Baltimore, Maryland, Hi, I discovered this site not long after the Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed earlier this year and have spent some time poring over all of the information gathered here. The collapse of the original Skyway is of course now forever linked in history with the Key Bridge disaster due to the similarity of both accidents. In addition, the replacement Key Bridge will very likely be of the same type as the Skyway. Even though I live in the Baltimore area, the collapse didn't affect my daily life as I rarely frequent that part of town. But what did get me really shook up was that I knew someone who jumped off of the Key Bridge. While nowhere near as bad as the Skyway, it did have some jumpers in its 47 year history. I could never find out even roughly how many, as of course authorities don't like to publish that info (plus, all you get now with a web search is stuff related to the collapse). The nearby Chesapeake Bay Bridge gets maybe a half dozen or so a year.
The Key Bridge jumper incident was over 20 years ago and I had tried to forget it, but the collapse brought all of that back up. All that time I was repulsed by the sight or even mention of the bridge, especially because of the unusual and horrid way the jumper died (I was unfortunately privy to some very detailed information about it). Even though the jumper was just a friend of a friend, just knowing a real person who died that way was horrifying. But then the Key Bridge was all over the news and everywhere and I could not avoid it....I imagine people who knew deceased jumpers of the old Skyway also experienced this sort of thing when that bridge collapsed.
Since the Key Bridge collapse, I have done some journal keeping, and I'll include some pertinent excerpts here, including details about that that jumping death. I don't know, knowing someone (even as a mere acquaintance) who jumped off a bridge and died horrified me then and still does now. It's far different if just a stranger. I saw the grief and horror my friend went thru. He loathed the sight of the Key Bridge and said he was almost glad it was gone. I don't doubt that some also feel that way about the current Skyway Bridge and I can see why. Worse yet with a bridge is that it is always there as a reminder... some have to cross said bridge every day. I can't imagine those who have lost someone to jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge ­ that one is really hard to avoid! With regards to the Skyway, even though I have no personal association (and have never seen it in person) there is just something about it that creeps me out to no end. I had watched some drive over videos (new bridge) and some about the collapse of the original bridge and it gave me nightmares. And this was before I found your site! I'm not scared of bridges but that's one I'd really have to think twice before I'd drive over it....
Anyway, here are some of those excerpts. Feel free to post them to your site if you like. Any thoughts you have on this are welcome.
One of my long time friend's best friend passed away at the foot of the Key Bridge in a most gruesome manner. For some reason it seemed, he had developed a bizarre (and eventually fatal) attraction to the Key Bridge. All of this was recounted to me by my friend, who was unfortunately privy to some of the more graphic details of what happened. Whenever this man found himself in a bad situation, unhappy with the way his life was going, he would jump in his car and head towards that towering roadway that spanned the Baltimore harbor. But something had always intervened. Perhaps he had warned friends or family members, and he turned away (or was otherwise dissuaded) at the last moment. Apparently this morbid on and off infatuation with the bridge went on for years ever since he was a teenager and continued well into adulthood.

Then came a day, not long before Christmas, when this man got in his car and headed south on the Baltimore Beltway. He drove out onto the bridge, stopping his car at the highest part of the span, and got out. Then he did the unthinkable. He climbed over the jersey wall and jumped. But he never made it to the cold murky waters below, as is the case with so many others who also made the final leap. Instead, he splattered onto the base of the bridge pier after falling almost 200 feet. The metal monster of my nightmares had tasted blood... Red pouring from a shattered body, soaking into the concrete, scarlet streamers dripping down towards the turgid waters below. Life draining away from an all too willing sacrifice, like that of a slain victim laid out on an ancient stone altar.
An impressive and vital piece of regional infrastructure had become sullied in my mind once I became aware of that tragic death. My initial dread of driving across the Key Bridge was unfounded, but this subsequent event was all too real and sickening. Surely this poor man wasn't the only victim of his own misery who chose that bridge as a way to end it all. And perhaps he wasn't the only one to miss the river and drench one of its piers in gore. But my (and my mom's) close social proximity to this person made it hit way too close to home. Every time I would see or hear anything about the Key Bridge, thoughts of this gruesome death would leap to the front of my mind. And it affected my friend even worse. One time he hailed a cab and then suffered a panic attack as the driver crossed the bridge on the way to his destination.
As said, for me the Key Bridge was always a sinister structure, first a symbol of fear and then of blood, misery and death. But of course that is only my own personal take - and likely that of others knowing people who chose to forfeit their lives from the height of that great span. Yet for most people, the Key Bridge was just a shortcut across the Patapsco River. A simple, useful and utilitarian purpose for which it was built. For others, it was a beautiful example of late 20th century truss bridge engineering and design. A gateway of sorts into Baltimore's harbor and an iconic landmark that defined the area. But they were not shown the dark side of that monumental and impressive structure, as was I.
So now I watch as the skeletal remains of that once mighty work horse, the Key Bridge, are slowly dismembered and carted away. Day by day until less and less will remain, until one day the river is devoid of the last traces of it. Ships and boats will come and go from the harbor, as was the case in the days before the bridge was constructed and before it fell. In the future a new bridge will rise from those dark waters, like a phoenix with its great outstretched steel and concrete wings spanning the river. Gleaming and bright, untouched by rust and time, the memories of its predecessor's grim past will still haunt the waters below. But will this new structure, its eventual form still unknown, continue to inspire dread? Will those of us who saw the darkness of the old Key Bridge have the same reaction to its replacement?
Fear, repulsion and horror, it seems, often leads to avoidance and willful ignorance. A natural reaction is to not want to look too closely (or look at all) at that which causes angst and dread. From the moment I heard the news of that untimely demise and all of its gory details, I could not look at even a picture of the Key Bridge without imagining that ghastly scene. I had the same reaction if someone even mentioned the bridge. I didn't want to look at it or hear anything about it, much less drive across it. It was all I could do to put that darkness out of my thoughts on my last trip over it. But now that it is gone, I am strongly compelled to look at images of the bridge. To try and understand that which had always caused me to turn away in revulsion. I look intensely at pictures and films of its past, as well as those of its demise and dismantling. Now, oddly enough, I find myself closely studying that which I always had turned away from.
In this modern industrial age of science and engineering, such recent legendary constructions and sinister places should not exist....But it seems they do! Structures now erected only for utility have somehow taken on the mantle of ancient building projects designed to inspire awe, admiration and for some, even fear and death. The arenas built by the ancient Romans were made specifically for spectacle. Gory gladiator battles and the slaughter of scores of animals, and countless humans, were the reason these structures were built. Same thing with the temples of the Aztec and Maya. They were created for the purpose of honoring various deities, usually with blood sacrifice. But what of a utilitarian section of roadway that is built to afford an easier crossing of a body of water, a gorge or some other geographical feature that is difficult to navigate? It seems that nothing is just whatever it seems to be, at least on the surface. The angst and dread suffered by those who cannot cross certain bridges is understandable. Heights, open spaces, confined lanes and steep grades are definitely a thing for certain people, all the worse when wrapped up in one dreadful package. But yet the persistent attraction to these ubiquitous infrastructural behemoths by the depressed is another thing indeed. Why choose that lethal way and not another? Why the Key Bridge? Why any bridge? Why taint it with blood? Bridges that have become altars of self sacrifice as though to some sort of bloodthirsty pagan deity, presiding over mass self- slaughter for years and decades, on and on... Passive steel and concrete serial killers somehow luring consenting victims to their grisly demise. Roadways and passages stained by sadness, horror and death. A thirst for blood that is never quenched, as long as a steady supply of willing prey is at hand.
Logically I can separate fact from feelings, but my emotions still reign supreme in memory of this lost regional landmark. Truly speaking, the Key Bridge harmed no one. In contrast, it greatly benefited the region. I don't ever recall hearing about any vehicles going over its sides, nor even any really bad accidents taking place on it. In fact, it was perhaps one of the least eventful stretches of the interstate that circles Baltimore. And those who jumped from its heights into the water ­ or spilled their blood onto its piers, did so of their on volition. Whatever morbid fixations they had on the bridge were in their own depressed minds. The best I can hope for is to try putting all of this into perspective, to see both sides, darkness and light. This misunderstood monster is now gone, passed into history but never to be forgotten. Itself a victim of a rare freak accident that should have never happened.
None of this morbid history would have likely ever entered my mind if not for my intimate knowledge of that fatal plunge from the Key Bridge so many years ago. But it did, and it has, and therefore I must consider and deal with it. The Key Bridge (or any other bridge) would be just a bridge, a passageway across something otherwise hard to navigate, perhaps an architectural and engineering marvel or even a tourist attraction. I'd imagine that's all that most people think about when seeing or crossing a bridge. The idea of someone leaping from a bridge (or other high point) to end their life is of course universally known, yet few would ever give it any thought outside of a passing mention. That changes, however, when such an event intrudes into and impacts one's life in some way. Something that strikes way too close to home, as it were. Which was made all the worse by my having known of the graphic and sickening details of that death. Then it becomes an ever present part of the background scenery, like the black cloud that hung over the Key Bridge in my mind. I cannot look at an impressive bridge without thinking and wondering about that sinister association.
 
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