Report: Man Attempts Suicide from Balcony of World Trade Center Oculus Train Station

A man reportedly tried to commit suicide by jumping from a third-floor walkway of the World Trade Center Oculus train station on Tuesday afternoon.

As hundreds of tourists and commuters walked through the station, a man seemingly tried to kill himself by jumping from a balcony and landing on the hard floor, thirty feet below, the New York Post reported.

Some reports say that witnesses saw the man crouching behind the chest-high railing before launching himself over the edge.

He was taken to Bellevue Hospital and is believed to be in critical condition.

Visitors to the transportation hub were shocked by the man’s actions.

“I was walking, and I looked up and saw the guy falling. He hit the ground with such force. I was shocked. Literally traumatized. I didn’t know what to do,” an employee of an Oculus shop told the media.

Another person said that a loud thump drew her attention to the area where the man fell.

“I was in the store, and I heard a really loud smack on the floor outside and then people screaming. I went outside and saw the guy laying on his side,” the woman said.

The man’s name has not yet been released.

If the man should die, this wouldn’t be the first death at the nearly two-year-old train hub. A woman fell to her death in February when she reached to catch her sister’s falling hat.

Twin sisters had taken the massive Oculus escalator sometime after 5 a.m. on Saturday, February 11, when one of the girls dropped her hat. Witnesses say the other girl went to grab the hat but fell over the side of the escalator and plummeted 30 feet to the floor below.

The Oculus transportation facility opened in 2016 after many delays and cost overruns, with a final price tag of about $3.9 billion. The long hall consisting of a striking white marble interior serves as a transit hub between New Jersey’s PATH trains and New York City’s subways. The Oculus also contains many shops and eateries and has become an important Big Apple tourist attraction.

The expensive project began after Muslim extremists destroyed the original PATH station during the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. It took nearly 16 years to complete.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.