Sarah Ann Henley (8 July 1862 – 31 March 1948) was a barmaid from Easton, Bristol, who became famous in 1885 for surviving a suicide attempt by jumping from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a fall of almost 75 metres (246 ft).
Witnesses claimed that a billowing effect created by an updraft of air beneath her crinoline skirt slowed the pace of her fall, misdirecting her away from the water and instead toward the muddy banks of the Bristol side of the Avon River.
An article dated 16 May 1885 in the City Notes of a local newspaper, the Bristol Magpie, reports as follows: The rash act was the result of a lovers quarrel.
[3] They found her in a state of severe shock, but alive, and escorted her to the refreshment rooms of the nearby railway station, where she was attended to by a Doctor Griffiths and a Detective Robertson, who had also observed the incident.
The cabman later defended his actions in a letter to the Bristol Times & Mirror, stating that he had only just had his cab cleaned and repaired, during which it was off the road and he was unable to earn a living.