JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Since its construction in 1953, Jacksonville's Mathews Bridge has had a long and tragic history.
The bridge brings traffic along the Arlington Expressway between downtown Jacksonville and the Arlington neighborhood.
"This bridge is one of the most centrally located bridges in the city. It's also one of the oldest bridges, so people are very familiar with the Mathews Bridge because it's very heavily traveled," News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith said.
It was named after John E. Mathews, a former Florida state legislator and State Supreme Court justice who helped raise cash to build the bridge.
The bridge is 810 feet long, a little longer than two football fields, and is 146 feet above the St. Johns River below, as high as a 14-story building.
The tragic history of the bridge started in 1999 as the DOT started replacing the grating on the bridge.
Soon afterward there was an increase in crashes, with drivers complaining that it was too slippery.
In July 2004, a woman was thrown off of the bridge after her Jeep lost control on that slippery grating and began to spin out, flinging her out of the vehicle and over the side of the bridge.
Shortly afterward, the city council called on the DOT to replace the grating. Work began in 2004 but not being completed until 2007.
There also isn't a lot of room on the bridge in case something were to go wrong.
On April 11 2014, 39-year-old Vernon Stephens was thrown off the bridge when a speeding driver crashed into his disabled car on the Mathews Bridge. He was standing next to his car.
"It is narrower. You don't have that emergency lane like you have on many bridges like the Buckman Bridge where you can get over if you need to," Smith said.
Stephens' body was found three days later and the other driver was cited for careless driving.
Smith said it's not surprising that it takes so long to find a person if they go off the bridge.
"It's especially difficult for a dive team to search because you have such low visibility in the St. Johns River, even with very strong light. Sometimes they can only see a foot or two in front of them. It's very difficult to search the river," Smith said.
Aside from traffic fatalities, the bridge itself has had its share of problems.
In 2012, a 100 mph gust of wind from a major storm damaged a deck that was being used by crews painting the bridge, closing it for a day.
On Sept. 26, 2013, the bridge was closed for more than a month after it was struck by the Navy Sealift vessel Harry L. Martin.
A chunk of the span was torn out and damage was estimated at $4 million dollars.
In response to all the problems, the Coast Guard recently released a report giving a number of recommendations to cut down on the number of accidents.
The biggest would be for the FDOT to thoroughly survey all the bridges in the area again to make sure they are safe.