Hudson Yards Suicide: NJ Teen Jumps To His Death From 6th Floor Of Vessel
Feb. 3 2020, Updated 8:40 p.m. ET
A New Jersey teen took his own life in front of dozens of horrified locals and tourists at New York City’s Hudson Yards this weekend.
Peter DeSalvo jumped to his death from the sixth floor of the 150-foot Vessel at around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 2.
Witnesses told reporters that upon seeing DeSalvo, 19, fall, bystanders began screaming and crying.
Marita Salkowski, who was visiting the site from Kentucky, told the New York Post that one man took off his jacket while running towards DeSalvo “and put it right over the victim’s face.”
Police quickly arrived at the scene and asked people to leave. “Everybody was really quiet walking down the steps,” Salkowski, 50, added. “Some people had tears in their eyes. My daughter and I went over to the side and said a prayer for him.”
The $200 million structure — which was unveiled to the public on March 15, 2019 — has 2,500 steps and eight floors.
The teen — who was a freshman at Sacred Heart University, where he also played rugby — was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Bystanders said he was alone at the time of the incident, and his heartbroken family members do not understand why he took his own life.
“He is seemingly the most unlikely of cases for suicide,” Simon Perry, DeSalvo's former football coach, told the Post, adding that the teen was a “tough kid, not afraid of anything.”
“The whole community is in shock,” Perry added.