Palisades Center: N.J. woman dies in 4th-floor plunge

WEST NYACK – A New Jersey woman who apparently jumped from the fourth floor of the Palisades Center mall Thursday afternoon was pronounced dead a short time later, officials said.

Clarkstown police received numerous 911 calls just before 4 p.m. reporting that a person had jumped from the top level of the mall.

Emergency responders found that a physician's assistant from Nyack Hospital who had been shopping at the mall was performing CPR on the woman.

The victim was taken by Rockland Paramedics to Nyack Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, officials said.

The woman, whom police said may have been in her 40s, appeared to have jumped from the fourth floor near the movie theater. Yellow tape was blocking off the area. Her body landed on the parking garage lower level of the mall. Investigators also appeared to be at the parking garage area at the basement level.

Police said Friday morning that she was a New Jersey resident but did not release her name, age or hometown.

Jackelene Matute, 19, of Port Chester, was getting out of an elevator in the parking garage level of the mall as paramedics loaded the woman into an ambulance.

"All of her things were on the floor — a sweater, a hat, gloves," she said. "I was shaking."

The woman did not appear to have identification with her and police are working to figure out who she is.

There were few shoppers at the normally busy mall because of the bad weather.

In early February, a 21-year-old New Jersey man jumped — allegedly on a dare — from the second to the first floor at the mall. He was hospitalized for leg and other injuries, and criminally charged with reckless endangerment.

Several other people have jumped or fallen to their deaths at the mall since it opened in 1998.

• A 54-year-old developmentally disabled man accidentally fell to his death at the mall in October.

• In December 2012, an Orangeburg woman jumped from the fourth floor in what Clarkstown police determined was a suicide.

• In January 2005, a New City man died after jumping 60 feet from the fourth floor, while a Pomona man did the same in 2000.

Check back with lohud.com for details on this developing story.

Twitter: @JaneLernerNY