Faltecha Munch, 41, of Fort Pierce, discusses her ordeal of jumping off the Seaway Drive Bridge to kill herself on Aug. 17, and being rescued by three teens from Okeechobee who were fishing from a pier under the bridge. “I was just in so much pain ... but I think it was the fever and sleep deprivation that I just wasn’t thinking clearly,” Munch said about jumping.

She wanted to die.

Munch was homeless from recently being evicted from her apartment and was out of money, living in the shadows in a park by the bridge. She said a man even tried to rape her in the park.

She was feverous from an infected bug bite that had swollen her face. And no one was listening — including a fast food restaurant clerk who had just turned away the hungry woman holding $4 a passerby gave her. The restaurant had just closed.

In desperation, Munch decided to die.

As she headed toward the bridge she thought of driving in front of a train. But she continued up the bridge. There she wrote a note saying, “Thanks for not coming to get me.”

She stood up at 2 a.m., slid over the rail and fell to the rushing water of the Fort Pierce Inlet below, looking up at the sky.

“My life was in the toilet,” she said Thursday after being released from medical treatment following her rescue by three strangers, all teenage friends from Okeechobee who happened to be fishing under the bridge that night.

She said the efforts Travis Mauldin, 17, Cody Beasley, 17, and Brandon Smith, 16, changed her life. Munch since then decided “to not give up, not now, not ever,” she said.

She paused and tears filled her eyes Thursday as she dwelled on the decision to jump. She is staying at a friend’s Fort Pierce home until her next Social Security check arrives.

“Something happened when I saw those kids” in the water, she said. “It was the most astounding thing:” risking their lives to save her.

On Wednesday, the Fort Pierce Police Department recognized the heroism of the youths.

She hadn’t yet met them, but if she does should would tell them, “They deserve every bit of that,” recognition, she said. “They helped when no one wanted to.”

At first, the boys thought the huge splash was a large dolphin or whale. It was Munch crashing into the water and sinking to the bottom. She gulped water while surfacing and emerged stunned — going in and out of consciousness.

When the youths saw a floating, motionless body they jumped into the strong-moving tide as others watched or called 911. She did notice the 150-pound, 6-foot-tall Mauldin, floundered and dragged down by the weight of his water-soaked blue jeans far from the shore.

“I did not want them to die for my stupidity,” said Munch.

She told them to leave, despite her in pain from breaking bones in the fall.

But Mauldin didn’t stop.

“I couldn’t watch someone float away and die,” he said soon after the rescue, which included swimming with her for 300 yards across a strong current. Their efforts finally touched her heart.

Now, Munch wants to fight against her eviction from an apartment in Fort Pierce where she had lived for years.

Munch, a former nursing assistant and house painter, will continue facing an array of health problems, including an ailing heart that contributed to her desperation. She said she has had eight surgeries and lost her spleen. Currently, she is recuperating from the injuries sustained from the fall: two fractured ribs and sternum and a collapsed lung.

All the while she keeps her rescuers in mind.

“I hope that whatever they want to achieve comes to them,” she said. “Good should come to them, too.”

Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers doesn’t customarily report on suicides and name people involved, but may when the incident happens in a public place, in the public eye or includes other factors.

An infant was hospitalized for dehydration after deputies found the 1-month-old child and his parents in a hot car Sunday morning, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said.

Nicholas Roberts, 24, and Justina Sullivan, 20, were charged with child abuse and possession of a controlled substance. The couple, listed as homeless on affidavits, said they previously lived in Fort Pierce but were evicted from their home Saturday.
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Gary Bach (TCPalm.com/courtesy)

By Will Greenlee

Federal authorities have arrested a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and issued him a notice to appear in court after concluding an investigation, according to records obtained Wednesday and an FHP official.

Trooper Gary Bach, who was placed on administrative duty with pay in mid-May, also resigned in a letter dated Tuesday, records show. Bach worked out of the FHP’s Fort Pierce office.

According to federal court records, Bach was accused in May of possessing oxycodone, which the documents list as a misdemeanor charge.

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Lokmen Hossain

FORT PIERCE — Lokmen Hossain said he got his gun because he knew he was going to try to kill his wife.

Hossain, 21, is accused of firing a shot late Wednesday in the BP gas station where he works, missing his wife of six months. He tried again to shoot her, but the weapon jammed.

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Brandon Smith, Cody Beasley, Travis Mauldin helped save a woman who jumped from her wheelchair off a bridge in Fort Pierce.

At first, Travis and other bystanders on a fishing pier below the bridge thought the loud crash sounded like a whale hitting the water. But they spotted a woman on her back, silently floating away in the strong tide coming in the Fort Pierce Inlet. She didn’t answer their calls.

Mauldin, 17, and his friends, Cody Beasley, 17, and Brandon Smith, 16, all of Obeechobee, jumped in to rescue her as another fisherman called 911.

“I couldn’t watch someone float away and die,” Mauldin said Tuesday.

Saving lives runs in Beasley’s blood. His father, Stephen Beasley, is a lieutenant with Martin County Fire Rescue.

“I grew up with my dad helping people,” Beasley said.
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By Elliott Jones

FORT PIERCE — A 21-year-old Fort Pierce resident riding his new motorcycle was beaten by an unidentified middle-aged man in an apparent road rage incident, police reports show.

The victim, Ian Hillard, of the 6200 block of Citrus Avenue, Fort Pierce, told police he was riding south on Oleander Boulevard at 9:51 p.m. Friday when a blue minivan cut him off.

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Cornelius McPhall, center, died in a boating accident on Tuesday morning. At right is Amy Capozzi, and their daughter Mariah McPhall is on left.

FORT PIERCE — Amy Capozzi said she swam furiously early Tuesday morning trying to save her floundering 44-year-old fiance, Cornelius McPhall, who fell out of their disabled anchored boat and into a strong outgoing tide in the Fort Pierce Inlet.

She jumped overboard holding a safety rope that ran out just 6 feet from him.

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Cornelius McPhall, center, died in a boating accident on Tuesday morning. At right is Amy Capozzi, and their daughter Mariah McPhall is on left.

FORT PIERCE — A 44-year-old Fort Pierce boater died in the ocean near the jetty early Tuesday after falling overboard while attempting to put out an anchor after the motor stopped inside the inlet, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The boater, Cornelius M. McPhall, 44, of Fort Pierce, didn’t have a life jacket on when he was swept out in the ocean by an out-going tide, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Nick Hatz.

The body was found about 5 a.m. just north of the jetty - hours after he was reported overboard in the inlet around 12:30 a.m. by one of two other female passengers in the boat.

McPhall’s body was recovered about 1 1/2 miles from where he fell overboard, from a 17-foot Cobia, near Shark’s Island near the Smithsonian Marine Station.

About 30 law enforcement officers from five agencies, two helicopters, a boat and 17 patrol cars were used in the hours-long search, Hatz said.

An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. Names of the two passengers were not immediately available. They were taken to a boat ramp.

Investigators are looking into why the boat motor stopped working.

In addition to the U.S. Coast Guard, the search involved the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fort Pierce Police Department, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Customs Service.

FORT PIERCE - Commercial fisherman Cory R. Brangan, 26, of Fort Pierce, was pronounced dead Saturday morning after an apparent boating accident in the Indian River Lagoon, according to a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is investigating the incident.

Brangan was found alone in a 20-foot fishing boat that had run aground on a spoil island east of the Intracoastal Waterway and north of the North Bridge in Fort Pierce, the FWC’s Gabriella Ferraro said.

“We know that he had a collision with something, but we don’t know what,” Ferraro said. “There was damage to the boat.” (more…)

By Keona Gardner

PORT ST. LUCIE — The 69-year-old woman on whom two Port St. Lucie police officers performed CPR after she collapsed Monday evening in a Publix grocery store died Wednesday, her son said.

Sheila Gonzalez of Fort Pierce died at 5:35 p.m. Wednesday at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute after suffering a heart attack in the store, said her son, Juan Gonzalez, 33. (more…)