State trooper hit by truck as man jumps off I-94 bridge

A 19-year-old man and a state trooper were injured Thursday in a bizarre chain of events that began with the teenager jumping off an I-94 overpass in Gurnee.

As the teen plummeted into interstate traffic, a northbound pickup truck hit the trooper, who was trying to stop traffic. Police said the teen had a broken leg, but the trooper was not seriously hurt.

"We're still not sure what (the jumper's) whole agenda was," Gurnee Police Cmdr. Jay Patrick said.

The incident began with a 911 call about 3:25 p.m., when a man claiming to be on top of a building "two hours away" told police he was going to jump unless he spoke to an unnamed person in Gurnee, Patrick said.

Officers spent about an hour trying to calm down the man and pinpoint his whereabouts with signals from nearby cellular towers. About 4:24 p.m., he was found on the Stearns School Road overpass talking on a cell phone.

As officers tried to approach the man, he backed away and ordered them to "keep their distance," according to Patrick. At one point, the man told police he was thirsty and - as an officer went to retrieve a bottle of water from a squad car - "just dove over the side of the bridge," Patrick said.

Simultaneously, two Illinois state troopers were trying to block traffic in both directions on I-94 when one of them was struck by a truck. Traffic was stopped for about an hour.

Both the jumper and the officer went to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville with injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said the Lake County state's attorney's office is reviewing whether to charge the teen.