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The 32-year-old woman, whom police declined to identify pending notification of her family, was driving west on the Route 30 bridge between Columbia and Wrightsville when she stopped and jumped into the river about 1:45 p.m.
"She was having some mental issues this year, hard times, and she parked her 2000 silver Audi on the berm, got out, walked to the front of the car and just jumped off the bridge," said West Hempfield Township police Sgt. Russell C. Geier.
A witness told Geier she did not hesitate when she jumped.
Despite the approximately 80-foot plunge from the bridge to the water and the many rocks both above the water and just beneath the surface, the woman survived.
"She must have hit a channel, because by the time we got there, she was standing up in the water and it was only waist deep," Geier said.
The woman jumped off the north side of the bridge, but when rescuers from Columbia Fire Company got to her in a boat, she was on a rock between the Route 30 bridge and Route 462 span to the south.
"She had waded a good tenth of a mile south of where she actually went in," Geier said.
The woman was taken to Lancaster General Hospital and admitted to the Trauma Unit for overnight observation. She appeared to have no major injuries.
Geier said he does not intend to press any charges.
