News

Details emerge on Jump Off Rock suicide

By Nancy Waclawek, Published: July 18, 2017

A man who fatally shot himself at Jump Off Rock last month was unable to hear law officers who tried to help him because he was deaf, Laurel Park Police Chief Bobbie Trotter said.

The man was 52 years old, unmarried with no children, Trotter said.

"He had a lot of medical issues," she said. "He had a lot going on his life."

The man displayed a 9-mm Glock handgun that other visitors at Jump Off could see. Two Laurel Park police officers and Henderson County sheriff's deputies responding to the report tried to talk to the man but to no avail because he could not hear them. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The family is still working on funeral arrangements for the man, who lived with his mother in Hendersonville.