Report: Two men were climbing Ravenel Bridge for ‘fun’ activity called ‘parkour’

The two men arrested after being spotted climbing under the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Mount Pleasant were just trying to have fun, a report says.

James Chad Tomberlin, 21, and Kahrall Arkeen Wright, 18, who are roommates in a Charleston apartment, were engaged in “parkour” in which participants rapidly move around objects for a thrill.

They both face a charge of disorderly conduct. Mount Pleasant Police Department officers reported that they found a pipe on Tomberlin and that he uses it to smoke marijuana.

Officers responded to the report about 5:30 p.m. Monday after a caller reported two men climbing a railing near the easternmost tower of the bridge. When the officers arrived, Tomberlin was standing on the pedestrian walkway while Wright was sitting on a beam about 6 feet below the pavement.

Dangling from the ladder of a fire truck, a firefighter was lowered into the opening around the tower. The fireman pulled Wright to safety.

“Tomberlin stated that he had just climbed back over the rail but his friend was still under the bridge,” the report says. “The subjects stated that they do things like this for fun, and it was called parkour.”

According to AmericanParkour.com, a website that boasts 90,000 registered users, “parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment.”

“Parkour training focuses on safety, longevity, personal responsibility and self-improvement,” the website says. “It discourages reckless behavior, showing off and dangerous stunts.”

A video from YouTube shows the two young men engaging in a Parkour session at a park in Greenville, S.C.

The incident affected traffic on northbound U.S. Highway 17 for more than two hours. Tomberlin was carrying a backpack, and bomb squad experts checked under the bridge as a precaution, but nothing hazardous was found.

The friends’ vehicle, which was found at the bridge parking lot on Cooper Street in Charleston, was towed away as the two were taken to jail.

Reach Andrew Knapp at 937-5414 or twitter.com/offlede.