Take on the WFAN jumper

A crisis may have been averted but ended tragically when a Montvale, NJ man jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge during the evening rush-hour.    The unidentified man was apparently upset by the state of his backyard and the amount of work he needed to do to his old house, his distrust of the government but mostly his disdain for an afternoon talk-show host, all of which came out when he called the radio station WFAN as he was threatening to jump.  The man called the radio station demanding to speak with Mike Francesa, the popular WFAN midday host and Marconi award winner as he was standing on a ledge off the side of the bridge channeling a similar situation when a man was talked off the bridge by former WXRK morning show host Howard Stern two decades ag.  Sadly, unlike that situation, in this case the radio host was not able to talk down the would-be-jumper and in actuality seemed to only exasperate the situation

The jumper almost didn't get on the air when he first called into the station because of busy signals but  when he finally did get through, he was initially rebuffed by the call-screener who told him that Mr. Francesa was discussing horse-racing at this point and that it being a "Football Friday", they would not have time to discuss ad-hoc topics.   The man called back and was finally patched through at about 5:25pm EST, having to wait through the popular "20-20 sports" segment by popular sports anchor John Minko.   Unlike in the situation with Mr. Stern, the situation with Mr. Francesa was testy from the beginning and unlike the Stern situation actually ended with the death of the caller..

TOR has reached out to WFAN and Mr. Francesa both of whom declined comment citing an on-going  police invastigation

TOR has been able to get a copy of the transcript of the event thanks to @RNs_Funhouse a member of the anti-Mongo nation popularized on twitter and other social media.  As many readers know, WFAN does NOT make tapes of events on the air with Mr. Francesa public.

 

Francesa:  Kurt** in Montvale,

Caller:   First Time, Long Time

Francesa:  Hey Kurt, whats up?

Caller:   Mike, my house is a mess, my backyard hasn't been done in months and...

Francesa:  what does this have to do with the 5^th race in Saratoga?

Caller:   see, I just can't take it anymore, I'm standing on the GWB and want to end it

Fancesa:  Monz, get me Adrienne Watson on the line

Caller: see my yard is just a mess and I hate my job and

Francesa:  OK listen, school's out early today apparently

Caller: It's just so hard to be living in this life

Francesa:  Wait a second, so you're telling me that you're gonna jump off the George Washington Bridge because of your yard?

Caller:  yeah, well you always said that you're there for your fans and you'd help out however you can

Francesa :  I never said that

Caller:  you did, when we met back in 2000 at the Garden, we spoke about Marcus Camby and I told you about our

Francesa:  I have no idea what you're talking about it.

Caller:  Mike, see I'm a big fan but I have to say that sometimes there are other things that bother me

Francesa : Go ahead

Caller:  see you said that there was no way that Chapman and Miller was gonna get traded when I called last month

Francesa:  I never said that

Caller:  see that's it exactly, you make it sound like you didn't say it but you actually did say it

Francesa:  what I said was that Miller and Chapman were likely to get traded

Caller:  No, you said the opposite

Francesa:  waitasecond, waitasecond, you're telling me that I said that Chapman was not gonna get traded, why would anybody who had half a brain say that?

Caller:  I have audio

Francea: listen, you didn't hear that from me, maybe it was another one of the clowns on this station, go bother them with this nonsense

Caller:  But, Mike, it's just that you always say you didn't say that when…

Francesa:  Get off my phone, bye

Caller: aaggggjghhh     splash

Dead air

Francesa :  Ira from Staten Island, howayou?

Ira:  Listen Mike, that guy sounded kinda disturbed

Francesa:  listen, it's still summer time, the kids are out of school, what do you want to say about your Jets

Ira:  I think they are going to keep four QB's

  

**name of caller changed**