By Don Stacom
The Hartford Courant, New London 

State troopers wrestled a despondent man to safety today after a long struggle in which he repeatedly tried to throw himself off the Gold Star Bridge, state police said.

Troopers were called to the northbound lanes of the I-95 bridge around 7 a.m. and found a man who'd gotten over the bridge's safety fence. He was threatening to jump, and troopers negotiated with him for about an hour and a half before trying to grab him through the fence, according to Troop E.

The man struggled with them for several minutes, according to a police account, with troopers holding onto him by his clothes and a rope they'd secured around his leg. At one point, he was held suspended in the air, they said.

A firefighter scaled the fence and cut openings for troopers to get through to the bridge's outer edge, where they were able to pull the man away. He was taken to a nearby hospital for an emergency evaluation.

Police and firefighters from New London, Groton police and the U.S. Coast Guard all assisted in the rescue, state troopers said.