DRAMATIC SKYTOWER RESCUE
STREETS IN central Auckland were closed down yesterday afternoon and into the evening, disrupting Saturday night plans for thousands of people, as police negotiated with a man threatening to throw himself off the Sky Tower.
Police cordoned off the area at Federal and Victoria Sts after being called to the tower at around 3.10pm, diverting traffic and cancelling bus services, as they tried to talk the agitated man down from the bungy platform 54 levels up on the country’s tallest building.
The man was escorted off the platform by a harnessed police negotiation squad around 8.10pm after a priest had been called in to help talk the man down.
At various times the man – who looked visibly distressed – walked around the plat- form, climbed down a ladder, then climbed back to the platform and sat with his legs hanging over the edge looking the 192 metres down to the ground.
North Communications Inspecotr Willie Taylor told the Sunday Star- Times last night that the man had bought a ticket to go on the tower’s SkyWalk attraction.
‘‘But he didn’t harness up. He just stepped out and made it quite obvious he was contemplating taking his life.
‘‘ From there the police negotiations team responded.’’
The SkyWalk gives people have the chance to ‘‘walk the 1.2m-wide walkway around Auckland’s famous Sky Tower – 192m above the ground, no handrails and nothing but air on either side of you’’.
Taylor said the event had been ‘‘very time consuming, but ultimately successful’’.
The man tody.
Eye-witnesses reported the man, who was dressed in an all-in-one orange suit, had seemed agitated on the SkyWalk.
SkyCity refused to comment on the incident and their procedures, and referred questions to police.
Auckland Central Police confirmed priest had gone up to talk to the man.
The Sky Tower and its two internal restaurants were closed down during the incident; however the casino and shops below remained open.
Dozens of bystanders milled around the cordon, many with cameras or phones trained on the man as he walked back and forth on the narrow platform. After about 30 minutes of the drama, police were forced to widen the cordon because of the number of onlookers.
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