Man loses life in accidental, unintentional, unforeseen bridge tragedy
By Brad McLeod
Photo by Gmourtiis @ Flickr
VANCOUVER — A young man’s body was fished from the waters underneath the Lions Gate Bridge early yesterday morning in what police assume must be the result of a failed extreme free-dive.
Paul Clarke, a recently divorced 24 year old computer programmer from Burnaby, is suspected to have secretly been a cliff diving enthusiast who late last night attempted a dangerous solo stunt off of one of the city’s highest bridges without taking the proper safety considerations.
Clarke’s family and friend are reportedly in complete shock.
“I had no idea he was even into diving,” his mother admitted to reporters while holding back tears, “he always seemed too depressed to even take up any hobbies . . . I can’t believe he would take such a giant risk without even telling us.”
Described as an introverted and lonely man who hated his job by his mother and father who he lived with, Clarke apparently displayed no previous interest in exteme sports. Clarke’s mother claimed to have no knowledge of any previous involvement in free-diving nor any plans to pull off any spectacular stunts.
[pullquote]”He always seemed too depressed to even take up any hobbies . . . I can’t believe he would take such a giant risk without even telling us.”[/pullquote]
“There were no warning signs at all” Clarke’s father explained, “he never once mentioned that he was interested in diving, now that you mention it, he didn’t really say anything at all, and when he did it was always how awful his life had become and how he was just so tired of it all — how was I to know something like this was going to happen out of the blue?”
When interviewed Clarke’s only friend and former co-worker, Ashram Inder, parroted the sentiments of his parents that Clarke never mentioned his extreme sports aspirations to him either. “Though I did catch Paul practicing his rope-knotting at his desk, once or twice. I guess he was practicing for tying up his safety harness. It’s a real shame, he was a really nice guy, and generous too. The last time I saw him, he gave me his phone, laptop and car saying he wouldn’t need them anymore. ”
In the Greater Vancouver police department’s five-minute-long investigation of the extreme sports accident, they found nothing that suggested the incident wasn’t a cut and dry case of bridge-dive-gone-wrong and found nothing unusual in their search of the man’s house which was empty save for what they suspect is a draft of a monologue involving fictional character who wanted to kill himself which was left on the coffee table.
The incident is just one of the hundreds of similar accidental deaths off the bridge recorded by the GVPD over the past five years. They suspect that the problem must be that people just don’t understand how easy it is to fall to their death.
Although the situation has been hard on all who were close to Clarke, his mother has stated that even though she didn’t know about it, her son must have truly loved diving and that at least she can take comfort in knowing that “he died happy and doing what he loved.”
