Woman stuck on bridge in Nijmegen after climbing it for a prank; Traffic chaos ensues

A young woman climbing the Waal Bridge in Nijmegen caused traffic chaos on Monday morning. Emergency services closed down the bridge for over an hour while helping the woman down. It was a prank that got out of hand, her friends told De Gelderlander. “It was a shitty joke that she took completely seriously. But she is absolutely not suicidal,” a friend said to the newspaper.

The woman started her climb at around 8:15 a.m. on Monday. The emergency services responded en masse and quickly cordoned off the entire bridge. Police cars blocked the access road to the bridge on both sides, stopping vehicles and bicycles. A SWAT team with climbing equipment was on the way, a police officer told the newspaper at around 8:45 a.m.

In the meantime, the woman had reached the top and was very slowly trying to make her way down.

The police spoke to her friends at the scene. They said they were returning from a party and went to chill in the park. At some point, the woman took a comment about climbing the Waal Bridge seriously. The friends went after her and tried to talk her down, but the woman kept climbing, they said. They added that none of them had expected her to actually do it.

Eventually, the SWAT team proved unnecessary. Firefighters helped the woman down with a fire brigade aerial platform. An ambulance transported her to a nearby police station. A police spokesperson said they would check whether the young woman was alright and then investigate. If it was indeed not a mental health crisis, she could be charged with disturbing the public order.

The police lifted the cordon and reopened the Waal Bridge around 9:15 a.m., but it took a considerable time for the traffic jams to dissipate.