What verb can be used transitively with the noun "bridge"?

Imagine an unsurpassable abyss between you and some kind of other side. And although you know you can't possibly make it, you still jump with a mad hope to make it to the safety of that other side. When you think you will sink into this abyss some kind of force makes a bridge and rescues you. I am looking for a metaphor, simile or just an acceptable expression containing the noun bridge as the direct object of a verb.

My sentence:

When we think that we fall into the abyss, it [the force] will [____ us (with _{if needed} ) the bridge] of its power.

Is there a verb that can be used transitively here? I thought of throw or extend or stretch something that unfolds like a bridge, but I am not sure of any of these.

Solution 1:

throw a bridge +preposition

has seen usage.

The phrase goes back at least 150 years.

The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History

More recent usages...

North Dakota's thundering economic boom (when I was driving across the state last fall, almost all the local radio announcements seemed to be for help wanted) has revived plans to throw a bridge and oil-access highway across the river upstream from the site, now technically known as the Elkhorn Ranch Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

NYT

But is also used metaphorically.

There, the trappings of period serve to throw a bridge of continuity between the classics of yesteryear and the present, rather in the way that the Grammys always go to modern versions of 50s soul acts: Amy Winehouse, Adele, Norah Jones.

The Guardian

If Kant has already established that on the basis of our awareness of our obligations under the moral law we can be confident that we have free will and that all of the laws of nature are at least consistent with our realization of the ends commanded by the moral law, what more needs to be done in order to throw a bridge between the theoretical cognition of nature and the laws of freedom?

SEP

When he wrote this song, he was struggling to throw a bridge across his own troubled water.

Huffington Post

Quotes seen on LudwigGuru

Note that the phrase is usually accompanied with a preposition such as across or between.

I have been searching for usages going back into military history...here is one:

The Delhi Gazelte has learnt your honour for it because iwice I have written you to edition that it is in contemplation to throw a bridge of pontoons across ...

Allen's Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence for British ...

I knew I had seen it used with 'pontoon bridge' before....

Solution 2:

A very natural way to say this is to verb the noun metaphorically, to use 'bridge' directly as the verb:

How can we bridge the gap between academia and industry?

Solution 3:

If the bridge itself is makeshift or constructed of an unusual material or component, "form" is often used.

1836, The United Service Magazine - Volume 21 - Page 562 "Thus ten rafts would throw 250 men across a river and form a bridge of 250 feet in length, immediately after."

2008, Biologically Inspired Optimization Methods: An Introduction p.99 "In such cases, Weaver ants form a bridge using their own bodies.