The story appears on

Page A8

June 18, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeWorld

Mystery man scales 鈥楾he Coathanger鈥

A man scaled the Sydney Harbour Bridge yesterday, sparking traffic chaos, before being coaxed down by police negotiators and arrested.

Reports said he got out of a taxi in the middle of the busy bridge and began climbing a pillar of the giant structure, which has its own security amid fears it could be a terror target.

Ian Wallace from the Traffic Management Network said the man went up about 75 metres and refused to come down.

“We have this person, he’s climbed up onto the Harbour Bridge, I can actually see him sitting up there at the moment,” he told Australia’s ABC radio at the time.

Television footage showed a man, who appeared to be middle-aged, sitting within an arch on the iconic iron landmark, dubbed “The Coathanger” by locals.

Police said in a statement that emergency services descended on the scene, closing several lanes of city-bound traffic in Australia’s largest city as negotiators worked to bring him down. He eventually returned to the ground on his own accord after almost two hours, where he was arrested and taken to hospital for a medical assessment.

No charges have yet been laid.

Security on the bridge was boosted in 2011 after a man paralyzed rush-hour traffic for hours by scaling it to hang two banners in a protest linked to a custody dispute over his children.


 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend