By Paige Fry
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — The man who dangled from Trump Tower for more than 13 hours from Sunday into Monday jumped out of a private ambulance that was taking him to another hospital, according to Chicago police.
The man, 31, was being transported from Northwestern Memorial Hospital about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the first block of West Washington Street in the Loop, police said. He somehow jumped out of the ambulance and escaped their custody.
At 5:30 p.m. Sunday, a police SWAT unit and the Chicago Fire Department had responded to a call of a man threatening to kill himself at the Trump International Hotel & Tower, 401 N. Wabash Ave. in the Near North neighborhood, police said.
The man rappelled down the outside of the building; he was seen hanging by a rope several feet below the ledge to the right of the large “Trump” sign on the building, said Tom Ahern, a police spokesman.
Police negotiators spoke with the man from the balcony on the building, Ahern said.
Detective Hector Matias, one of the crisis negotiators, said while the man was hanging from the building with the harness, he threatened to use the knife to cut the rope if police tried pulling him up. Eventually, he surrendered the knife and was pulled to safety.
The man was taken to a hospital for mental health evaluation after he was pulled off the building, police said.
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