Motorist plunges off Gilmerton Bridge trying to jump across

CHESAPEAKE

It wasn't the General Lee. It was a four-door Nissan Maxima with Kentucky plates.

But when police saw what the Nissan's driver attempted Tuesday on the Gilmerton Bridge, well, they couldn't help thinking: "The Dukes of Hazzard."

Except for one thing: The iconic orange General Lee could jump just about anything. The Maxima - not so much. Police say they were in pursuit of the car just before 2:20 p.m. when it broke through a railing and landed in the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River.

"As the bridge was closing, he attempted to jump from one portion to another," Chesapeake Police spokeswoman Dorienne Boykin said.

The car came up several feet short, plunging at least eight feet into the water below. The driver made it to shore with some cuts on his neck and arm. Medics retrieved him and took him to the hospital. Police said he was being held in jail this morning.

Michael Christopher Mills Jr., 38, of the 900 block of Blackwater Drive has been charged with felony eluding and damaging property, Boykin said. He was originally wanted on a felony identity fraud charge. Mills also is a convicted sex offender, according to the state's online sex offender registry Web site.

Mills was convicted in 1993 in Chesapeake of carnal knowledge of a child age 13 to 15, according to the site. 

A portion of the plunge was caught on surveillance tape where a bridge operator manned a station. Police officers and public works employees watched as a flash of the car in the bottom right of the screen was followed by a splash.

Out on the bridge, officers waited. Below, the department's dive team located the car in 42 feet of water, upside down on the river bed and sticking straight up.

Word of a second pursuit headed toward the Gilmerton Bridge made for a tense moment, until police realized it was a motor scooter, and it was headed somewhere else.

The first peek of the car came at 4:30 p.m. - a dark-colored Nissan with Kentucky plates, a smashed front end and a busted-out window shield pulled up with chains. Pinkish air bags sagged like heavy water balloons as the car dangled over the river for several minutes, dripping water.

"Don't damage it," somebody joked as the front bumper knocked into the railing.

They mimicked the General Lee's horn blast.

"Better make sure we're not missing somebody else," an officer shouted from the Chesapeake police boat below. He held up a pair of purple and black panties, also retrieved from the water.

It was one of the strangest calls tow-truck driver Troy Old of Dale Old Wrecker Service has responded to, and he's been in the business for 24 years. He once took a tow truck out on a ferry to fish a vehicle out of the water.

"I don't think I've ever gotten one off a bridge," Old said. "There's a first time for everything."

Pilot writers Mike Saewitz and Patrick Wilson contributed to this story.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5555, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com