Eli Robinson's terrifying mental illness and the fight to save him

RYE — Eli Robinson awoke from a medically induced coma last November, his sister and brother at his hospital bedside.

One week prior, Eli attempted suicide, jumping off the 150-foot-high Piscataqua River Bridge into the swift current below.

Instances of a person surviving a jump from the Interstate 95 span connecting Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Kittery, Maine are rare. Eli became one of the few, suffering a collapsed lung and several broken ribs.

Eli, 34, made a vow to his siblings.

“(Eli) said, ‘I will never do that again. I will never do that again,’” Marta tearfully recalled in a July 31 interview.

Duncan , their younger brother and a seven-year NBA veteran, told him: “‘You don’t understand. We cannot survive without you,’” Marta added. “And (Eli) goes, ‘I promise I will never