Even for talk radio, in which people of all stripes eagerly display private grief for public scrutiny, it was bizarre. Standing at midspan on the north sidewalk of the George Washington Bridge yesterday morning, a young Bronx man apparently intent on suicide stopped first to call Howard Stern on his cellular phone.

When Mr. Stern, the voluble talk show host, put the caller on the air, the morning suddenly turned into rush-hour guerrilla theater.

Mr. Stern kept the man on the phone for five minutes until the Port Authority police, who found out about the jumper because their tour commander had been listening to the radio, arrived and took the man into custody. By that time, at Mr. Stern's request, drivers had begun honking their horns to verify that there indeed was a caller poised to jump. The police identified the man as Emilio Bonilla, 29, of the Bronx.

An incident that began with one man's anguish quickly involved not only Mr. Stern, whose 6 to 10 A.M. program on WXRK-FM is the leading audience-getter at that time in New York City, but also westbound drivers on the bridge, where two lanes were temporarily shut down. Some drivers who saw Mr. Bonilla stopped, came up to him and borrowed his phone to chat with Mr. Stern. Several officers responding to the incident even took the phone to proclaim Mr. Stern a hero and themselves his fans.