TALKEETNA — Borough medics and rescue workers helped Sunday to save an Anchorage man who jumped off a bridge north of Talkeetna, but the man died on the way to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

    According to an Alaska State Trooper press release, responders were called to the Hurricane Gulch bridge on the Parks Highway at 5:20 p.m.

    Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said Jon Starheim, 25, of Anchorage, jumped off the bridge that runs over the Chulitna River and survived the 300-foot fall but died en route to the hospital.     “We are suspecting that it was suicide. Witnesses said that they saw him get out of his car and leap off the bridge,” she said.

    Ken Farina, chief of the Talkeetna Fire Department, said responders from Willow, West Lakes, Talkeetna and Cantwell came out to rescue Starheim. The bridge is in the borough boundaries but for the Cantwell and Talkeetna crews, Farina said, it was basically the same drive time.

He said he didn’t get home until about midnight but daylight wasn’t an issue on scene.

    “We could see him moving around down in the bottom of the canyon or the gulch,” he said. “As it got dark out we have big spotlights, handheld and truck mounted.”

    He said the Cantwell medics called in a rescue team from the Tri-Valley Volunteer Fire Department, which has training on high-angle rescue work. They used ropes to get down to Starheim and to bring him back up.

    The system they used, he said, runs on pulleys and arm power. It’s something he said he’s trained for but can’t remember having to do prior to Sunday night.

    “The Tri-Valley guys, I think, have better training than us,” he said.

    Brodigan said Starheim held on quite some time but things started turning south while he was still dangling from the bridge.

    “They got him literally within sight of the roadway and he went into cardiac arrest,” Brodigan said.

    Medics performed CPR on Starheim as they drove him to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center but he died on the way.

    Starheim is presumably the second person to die jumping from a bridge in the area this year. In July, Jacob Larson, 22, of Nikiski, jumped from the Alaska Railroad Trestle bridge over the Talkeetna River during this year’s Moose Dropping festival. Many people were jumping that day for sport. Larson hasn’t been seen since.

    Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.