The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is calling an incident at the side of the road along State Road 60 East near Kissimmee Shores Road shortly after 1 p.m. July 28 an apparent suicide.
The incident stopped traffic in both directions of SR 60 for more than an hour. By 2:46 p.m. traffic was able to move again in all but one lane of the westbound direction of the highway.
At 1:06 p.m. the sheriff’s office emergency call center “received a 911 call from a man who was clearly suicidal based on the statements he was making,” a sheriff’s public information officer said in an email exchange with a Ledger reporter.
“The man refused to give us his location and hung up,” she said. “We continued to call back but he would not answer.”
The Sheriff’s Office was able to positively identify the man and his address and identify which type of vehicle is registered to him (a grey Chevy pickup truck).
“We were able to pinpoint the location of the truck, which was parked on State Road 60 near Kissimmee Shores Road,” the spokeswoman said. “We requested PCFR to respond as well.”
A nearby resident who shared phone pictures of the scene with a Ledger reporter said drones and the sheriff’s office helicopter were deployed to the scene, and they witnessed deputies with shields and guns drawn toward the pickup after first arriving at the scene.
The sheriff’s office has not released the name of the deceased individual as the agency conducts a death investigation. An autopsy will be conducted to determine his exact cause of death.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Traffic on SR 60 in Lake Wales stopped as sheriff’s office responds to apparent roadside suicide
Reporting by Paul Nutcher, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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