Update 2: Heartland Crew Says Woman in Suicide Try Was Talking in Ambulance

Updated at 1:20 p.m. Thursday

An 18-year-old woman leaped from the Baltimore Drive overpass of Interstate 8 about 8:35 p.m. Wednesday, hitting the westbound lanes with a sound heard by witnesses in a parking lot overlooking the scene.

Thursday morning, Heartland Fire & Rescue officials said the woman was taken to the hospital with “non-life-threatening injuries.”

 “Heartland fire paramedics were in the ambulance that transported her, and she was talking to them,” said Sonny Saghera, a department spokesman.

The hospital would not release information, citing patient privacy laws.

La Mesa police and Heartland Fire & Rescue were on the scene for more than an hour, blocking I-8 traffic in both directions for a time and later opening eastbound lanes.

A La Mesa officer tried to prevent her from jumping, but wasn’t able to halt the act, witnesses and police said.

The woman, whose name and hometown weren’t immediately disclosed, was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital in Kearny Mesa, where her condition was not available, police said.

“We were here for about 10 minutes, and the person was against the fence, sitting on the ledge,” said witness Michel Goldstein of Chula Vista. “The cops were trying to talk to [her], and all of a sudden [she] let go.”

The woman hit a westbound lane, he said, “and about six people were working on the victim, put [her] on the stretcher and left.”

Goldstein said he saw her arms move after she was on the ground, but he wasn’t sure if she moved her arms on her own or the paramedics were moving them.

Goldstein and his brother had come to have dinner at the Himalayan restaurant in the 99 Cents Only store shopping center at the corner of Baltimore and El Cajon Boulevard. 

He saw a group of people in the parking lot overlooking the freeway and overpass, and asked what was going on. About 10 minutes later, she jumped, he said, although he couldn’t tell the sex of the victim from his vantage point.

Both lanes of I-8 and the Baltimore Drive overpass were flowing freely shortly after 9 p.m. Traffic had reportedly been backed up to state Route 125.

La Mesa police Lt. Chad Bell said a male officer experienced in such negotiations spoke to the woman on the bridge after police received a 911 call about 7:45 p.m. about someone climbing the fence on the west-facing side of the span.

“We do think we know who she is,” Bell said, but her name was withheld while authorities tried to contact her relatives.

Seven or eight officers responded to the incident, and a San Diego Police Department crisis unit also arrived, Bell said. But La Mesa handled talks with the victim, he said.

A dispatcher for Heartland Fire & Rescue said three trucks from the Allison Avenue fire station were dispatched to the scene, along with one AMR ambulance.