What Drivers Tweeted to Suicidal Woman on Bridge

Drivers in a London suburb weren't exactly sympathetic yesterday to a suicidal woman who blocked traffic for two hours as emergency crews tried talking her down, the Independent reports. Amid the M3-motorway delay in Sunbury, Surrey, angry tweets came rolling out:

• "Tell her to get on with it," wrote one Twitter user to the police force's account. "Bloody ruining everyone’s weekend. Sat in this for an hour and a half now."
• "To the person causing traffic jam on the M3/ A31, you selfish, selfish tw*t."
• "Surrey police, can’t you rubber bullet the jumper on M3/ A316 and get the traffic moving? Or get net ready and charge her? Ridiculous."

Police responded on Twitter by explaining the cause for delay and responding to criticism about the closure, the Guardian reports. "If we could think of better we’d honestly take it," wrote the chief constable of police in Surrey to one complaint. "We know how irritating road closures are!" But not everyone on the force played nice: "Having members of the public taunt somebody who is clearly in a distressed state as we did earlier today is completely unacceptable," said an inspector. Eventually first responders saved the woman, who is being under the Mental Health Act, and one angry tweeter dialed it down in response to Twitter backlash: "Goodness I am so sorry for any offence. ... I apologise unreservedly." (More Twitter stories.)