Bridge Patrol Officer Returns iPhone Dropped on Golden Gate Bridge Ledge

Anxiety-inducing footage from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge shows a bridge patrol officer used a grabbing tool to retrieve an iPhone someone had dropped onto the ledge in mid-August.

Jesse Meeker, an artist and video producer in Los Angeles, recorded this video and originally posted it to TikTok with a quote reading, “We don’t always get second chances in life, but when we do you must give it your very best.”

Meeker told Storyful he was visiting his friend — photographer Jake Ricker, also known under the Instagram handle @jake_ricker — who, Meeker said, has spent years documenting the bridge and the people who cross it. He said through Ricker’s time on the bridge he knows the bridge patrol officers and they know him.

“Jake had noticed the phone and reported it to the bridge patrol. Once the cop had arrived at the scene, the person who dropped their phone had returned and flagged him down,” Meeker said. “Thanks to Jake, he had already known about it and had come to the scene with a claw grabber.”

The video shows a crowd looking on as the patrol officer, laying flat on his stomach, uses the device to maneuver the phone so he can get a good grip. When he finally manages to lift the phone up, the crowd is quiet.

“The energy was tense as we all watched. We thought that the phone might fall over the ledge if it wasn’t grabbed right,” Meeker said. “It was like a collective breathe hold once he had the phone in his grasp and we watched the girl reach through the banister of the bridge to grab her phone.”

“After it came through, everyone cheered and congratulated the officer. They lined up to take photos with him,” he said. Credit: Jesse Meeker via Storyful

Video transcript

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