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.

Marijuana bales were transferred from a beached boat on Hutchinson Island and transferred to a St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office truck and taken away. (Ronda Robbins photo)

What do a deadly plane crash, beached sailboat en route to Cuba and a boat laden with more than a half ton of marijuana have in common?

They all happened or turned up since mid-May as part of what at least one local resident called the “Jensen Beach Triangle.” The three incidents happened along or off a strip of beach by the Island Beach Resort and Shuckers restaurant on Hutchinson Island in southern St. Lucie County.

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Law enforcement agents offload bales of marijuana from a boat that washed ashore in St. Lucie County (Courtesy of Ronda Robbins and TCPalm.com)

By Will Greenlee
HUTCHINSON ISLAND — On the balcony of her 15th-floor condo early Tuesday, Ronda Robbins thought she saw a boat coming closer and closer to the shore.

Robbins, 48, got her glasses and after confirming it was a vessel, called the U.S. Coast Guard, thinking the boat may be experiencing engine problems. Waves lapped over the boat. As it got 10 to 12 feet from shore, a man with no shirt or shoes ran away, she said.

As the morning unfolded, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office and federal officials determined the 33-foot boat, which came ashore about 6:40 a.m. near the 10000 block of South Ocean Drive, contained about 1,100 pounds of neatly-packaged marijuana. Officials also detained a man found walking nearby along South Ocean Drive, and notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (more…)

By Nicole Rodriguez

PORT ST. LUCIE — Lomiah Magloire nearly made it.

She could see St. Lucie Medical Center.

Ellah Danielle Tyffani Magloire couldn’t wait that long.

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Residents of the Woodridge community say feral hogs are getting more destructive. (Photo by WPTV)

STUART — Spiny tops are all that remain of the pineapples Micki Studor has been growing for a year.

Wild pigs ate the fruit for dinner Tuesday night. (more…)

STUART — A Stuart man is recovering after being bitten by a shark in Jacksonville.

“The shark grabbed me and shook his head a little bit, and I think he kind of realized that he was biting the wrong thing, so he let go,” said Clayton Shulz.

The 20-year-old needed 400 stitches to repair the injury to his foot.

Shulz is a baseball player at the University of North Florida. He still has several more surgeries and months of rehab ahead of him.

State wildlife officers said they caught a man feeding hot dogs to alligators in his back yard.

Matthew P. Bucci, 39, of the 5400 block of Northwest Empress Circle, Port St. Lucie, was charged with feeding alligators, a misdemeanor offense, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.

Port St. Lucie Officials said feeding alligators can lead to them associating food with humans.
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PORT ST. LUCIE — Police are investigating whether an 11-year-old girl’s suicide is the result of bullying at the school she attended, a police spokesman said Friday.

The girl, who attended St. Anastasia Catholic School in Fort Pierce, was found by her parents Thursday night in her bedroom closet, said Officer Tom Nichols, police spokesman.

“She had a diary,” Nichols said. “There are entries in her diary where it indicated she was being bullied at school.”

Nichols said the girl’s parents found her about 11:30 p.m., hanging in her closet with a belt wrapped around her neck. The girl’s father lifted her up and her mother tore down the shelf.

Nichols declined to identify the girl or go into details about the diary entries. The girl did not leave a suicide note.

The girl lives in a community in Tradition.

St. Anastasia Catholic School is in the 400 block of South 33rd Street in Fort Pierce.

STUART - An organization is encouraging beauty salons, barber shops and pet groomers to collect hair so it can be used to help soak up the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

Heather Lundstrom, who runs Salon 206 in Stuart, found out about the effort by San Francisco-based Matter of Trust.

“I can’t go over there and actually volunteer,” Lundstrum said. “I have a family here and a business, so I can at least donate the hair and it helps out a little bit.”

She says every hair clipping swept off her salon floor will be sent to the nonprofit group.

Matter of Trust says the hair will be stuffed into old nylons, which are then wrapped with mesh to make oil-absorbent booms.

More than 400,000 pounds of hair are already on the way to Gulf Coast, the organization says.

FORT PIERCE — Experts believe “human interference” is behind the deaths of about 15 pelicans found on the banks of Taylor Creek behind the Taylor Creek Commons Shopping Center.

“You could come up with some scenario in which no humans were involved,” said Dan Martinelli, director of the Treasure Coast Wildlife Center in Hobe Sound. “But for all those pelicans to die piled up like that and nobody have a hand in it? No, that’s a stretcher, a billion-in-one shot. My best guess: This is a case of human interference.”

Bill Nunn of Fort Pierce found the pelicans Saturday afternoon and reported them to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, but officers weren’t able to locate them Saturday night.
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