Minn. Bridge Disaster Stokes Fears
By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 4, 2007
After seeing the images over and over -- the crushed concrete, the mangled cars, the twisted girders -- there's just something about crossing a bridge that doesn't seem so appealing anymore.
Jay Fenton understands.
For 20 years, he was paralyzed by bridges. Upon approach, his breathing became shallow, his hands clammy with sweat. The feeling of imminent death would send pinpricks all over his head. He tried to ignore it all.
"But it's like pink elephants," said Fenton, 58, of Annapolis. "Someone tells you not to think of pink elephants, and the more you try not to, the more you can't think of anything but."
The best thing to do is not to avoid fear but to deal with it, he said.
As the shock of the Minneapolis bridge collapse sets in, so too will people's apprehension of bridges, experts believe.
For some travelers, that might simply mean a general unease on the daily commute. For a few who were a little afraid already, the incident could push their fears into a full-blown phobia.
"And for people already phobic, this could be like taking what's already there and lighting a match to it," said Jerilyn Ross, a District psychotherapist and president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.
What makes the Minneapolis disaster so frightening, experts say, is the unpredictability of it and the omnipresence of the horrific scenes. But most of all, the anxiety stems from the it-could-have-been-me factor.
"Everyone out there has at one point driven over a bridge," Ross said. "With this crash, there's no explanation yet, no way to rationalize why it happened there and why it couldn't happen elsewhere."
Experts, however, are quick to differentiate mere increased apprehension from outright phobia of bridges -- known as gephyrophobia.
"When we're talking about phobia, that's irrational fear," said Jean Ratner, who runs the Center for Travel Anxiety in Bethesda. After reading reports about the country's aging infrastructure, Ratner herself began questioning the general maintenance of bridges. "Unless our government repairs some of this infrastructure, it's not a completely irrational fear."
Phobia is also as much a fear of the feelings one gets -- fear of the fear -- as it is about any particular subject.
"My fear, for example, was never that the bridge would fall," Fenton said, "but that I'd get so panicked and dizzy that I'd pass out and drive off and kill myself."
The Washington region -- with its numerous rivers, overpasses and spans -- can be particularly challenging for those leery of bridges. When his wife suggested a vacation in Ocean City, Fenton had her leave a day ahead and then took a lengthy detour around the 2.4-mile-long, 186-foot-high Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
When his wife finally figured out his secret phobia 12 years ago, she had him practice in vain on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which is 1.6 miles long and 185 feet high south of Baltimore.
"I just couldn't do it. I mean, I flew a helicopter through war zones in Vietnam, but this was something irrational," he said. Finally, after he climbed into the trunk and had her drive them over the Key Bridge, they decided he needed help.
He's not alone out there. So many drivers have had trouble willing themselves across the Bay Bridge that authorities started a free program for them several years ago. Drivers could call an hour ahead to have an emergency roadway technician or police officer hop into their car and personally drive them across the span.
The program, however, proved too popular. Last year, after the number of "drive-overs" reached 4,000, the Maryland Transportation Authority decided something had to change.
"It was just taking so much time and attention away from the technicians and police," spokeswoman Kelly McCleary said. "We either had to create a whole new department for it or get a third-party vendor."
Two companies in Kent Island won the contract and now provide the service.
"Some people can do eastbound but not westbound," said Tracy Merton, a dispatcher at Kent Island Coach & Courier. "Some can't handle when it's under construction. Some call ahead and reserve. Some think they can do it right up to the toll station."
Each crossing now costs $25 -- "no roundtrip specials, no commuter or elderly discounts," Merton adds. "We do bicycles too, but that costs extra."
So far, the Minneapolis collapse has not brought in more customers, but Merton thinks people who are truly afraid could simply be staying away.
The phones haven't exactly been ringing off the hook for therapists, either. In fact, many predict that calls from bridge phobia patients will actually decrease in the short term because of the Minneapolis collapse.
"Before this happened, people who were anxious about it might have come in to work on their fear of bridges and tunnels because it was an irrational fear," said Ratner, who has seen a similar trend after plane crashes. "But with that bridge collapsing, their fears seem justified. It doesn't seem so irrational anymore."
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