"I believe a barrier on the bridge would end this problem."

Kind of like solving the hooker problem by parking a patrol car on a specific street corner.

Granted it might take some of the romance out of a suicider's ideal jumping fantasy but it's not about stopping suicide, it's about not inconveniencing a few parking lot attendants and saving those poor cops from, you know, having to save lives and shit.

What about the poor bastards who walk in front of trains? Or walk into traffic? Or drive into highway dividers? Or pull a paring knife up their arm? What are the stats on them? Bet it's more than nine per year. It's the obvious places we have to set up barricades for, because it's the obvious places where the public gets confronted with suicide. I look forward to the people of Seattle demanding the State of Washington make rubber knives and half-mile per hour speed limits mandatory... oh, right, and maybe guns too.

Fascinating. In my neck of the woods, they are in the process of putting up a barrier and phones on the Tappan Zee Bridge to dissuade jumpers.

I have mixed emotions about barriers. I know for a fact there are barriers on the Empire St. Bldg, but people still jump. If you are determined to do something you will do something.

What is amazing about jumping stats, is Farberow and Schenideman once interviewed surviving jumpers from the Golden Gate. The survivors said it was "Golden Gate or nothing, no other bridge would do".

And every survivor said they changed their minds during free fall. They wanted to live.

But I cannot say I know a lot about jumping. My fear of heights have made this method impossible, I wouldn't even consider it because I couldn't get high enough to do it.

Thus I prefer trainspotting. I've been talked down from jumping in front of a train once. In hindsight, I have nothing but respect for the cop. He could have died with me had I jumped, and the train not be delayed. (I love Amtrak!)

Well, Harborview Medical Center has a net draping around the edges of their parking garage--I see it when I park to go to mental health court. I looked at the net the other day and thought, hell at least they are trying to save a life.[or a lawsuit]. That's really probably why the business owners can put the pressure on---threatening to sue for damages, pain and suffering, they can round up the state, county and city the bridge resides in and take them to court for endangering them and their property. Sad, but true. I think any effort to stop a suicide bridge from remaining popular is a good idea. Now how about the Golden Gate Bridge? Like Susan said, it's a romantisized vision of dying, that some people have. There are plenty of trains around Safeco field in Seattle, along Puget Sound--it's the person's wish to kill themself however they imagine it, so be it a bridge, gun, knife, train---the point here I believe is snuffing out at least one bridges claim to fame,may save a life-- and yes there are others that could take it's place as a result: like the West Seattle Bridge at it's highest point.

What I remember most about Romantic visions of dying was presented in two courses, one Literature, one Psych. Both made comments that during the start of the so called "Romantic" era, Goethe had published "Werther". And French girls were reading the book in droves and throwing themselves off into the Seine. It got to be quite a problem for the French, girls were washing ashore or baving to be dragged in record numbers, and many were lying in makeshift morgues while they tried to find the next of kin.

S
And some doctor who would examine the dead girls, while laying them out noticed that many, the number was just a fraction away from half, had their nails broken off, scratches on their fingers. The other half or so had perfect fingers, the only damage was from the water.

And he realized the girls with the messed up fingers changed their minds and were trying to grab on to anything in the water to save them.

Which ironically I am going to add, is sort of strange. If Goethe supposedly started or made famous the Romantic Movement by writing about Chatterton's suicide, Chatterton himself botched it and was heard to have cried out in the night that he wanted to live.

A. Alvavez, who's "Savage God" starts off with Sylvia Plath's suicide, is convinced she didn't mean or want to die. It was a call for help. She messed up the calibration from US to UK gas units.

Sylvia Plath might have said "Dying is an art, I do it quite well"

But Going into that good night can be quite tricky, and there should be ways to stop if you change your mind without damaging your body and soul

Putting nets around bridges isn't going to save lives, it just gives College Frat Parties someplace to end the evening. Suicides are increasing and the percentage of jumpers is still way down the list.

When we want to die we ask ourselves "How?" Your bridge comes to mind first and the answer is "wait... oh, that's right, there's a net." Two seconds later we decide on the bridge without the net. Sure it's an extra four blocks but, gawdammit, my death's worth going the extra mile.

How about putting life guards and CCTV on the bridge? Or handing out free Lithium at the clinics? Or maybe adding some free counselling and prescription medications to the very short list of things local and state governments fund? Or maybe some extra outreach programs for alcoholics and drug addicts? Oh, wait... that involves a one percent increase in my taxes. Get the net. Better yet, surround our bridges in plastic like giant hamster runs. That'll save a few lives, I'm sure. At least I won't have to see them explode on the ground.

Susan and Gabriel-- awesome comments.

According to the Washington State Aurora Bridge Suicide Prevention Project website they are using Toronto's Bloor Street Viaduct, and the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington DC as examples of bridges with netting or barriers are now used to prevent suicider's from jumping. And it's entirely possible each one of them is working and absolutely no more suicides have been recorded at either bridge. Which must be wonderful for the commuters.

This is from the Canada Safety Council, which tracks Canadian suicide numbers:

"In Canada, suicide is the leading cause of death for men aged 25 to 29 and 40 to 44, and for women aged 30 to 34. It is the second leading cause of death among youth aged 15 to 24. For each completed suicide there are 100 attempts, and over 23,000 Canadians are hospitalized each year for a suicide attempt."

"Over 90 per cent of suicide victims have a psychiatric illness, most often depression, at the time of their death, in many cases undiagnosed, untreated or both. One in 10 people living with schizophrenia dies by suicide."

"The proportion of completed suicides is highest with a firearm (92 per cent). A home where there are firearms is five times more likely to be the scene of a suicide than a home without a gun. Reducing access to guns results in fewer suicides."

"The combination of mood disorders and substance abuse greatly heightens the risk of suicide. This reinforces the need for preventive policies with respect to alcohol, illegal drugs and prescription medications."

"Nearly 80 per cent of all firearms deaths in Canada are suicides, compared to 15 per cent of homicides. A firearm is the method used in nearly 20 per cent of all suicide fatalities. Some say that in the absence of a firearm, a suicidal person will seek out another method, but research indicates that is not so.

A Quebec study by the Centre de prévention du suicide 02 examined whether suicide rates were related to gun ownership rates. It found that where hunting for sport is common and firearms are more readily available, the firearm suicide rate is higher than in urban areas. Moreover, as the firearm related suicide rate increased, so did the overall death rate by suicide. The researchers concluded that if a suicidal person does not have access to a firearm, there is no evidence that another method will be used, at least not one as lethal as a firearm."

"Most suicidal individuals can be helped and can go on to lead rewarding and meaningful lives.
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Now. Nowhere -- in all of their considerable research over several decades of tracking the numbers -- does the CSC say suicide rates will fall in any way, in any way, by putting up nets under bridges. In fact I'd be shocked if any agency said it would be so.

So if the good governments of Washington State and Seattle insist on using Toronto as a success story for stopping suicidal leaps on one 200 foot long bridge in a city of four million people, maybe they should also use the numbers from Toronto and Ontario and Canada which say leapers, as a percentage, barely even make the spreadsheet.

A Public Relations stunt will not help us.

gabriel, no disrespect but have you ever seen a body right after it's hit the ground? i suspect you haven't. this is far from a pr stunt that's goign on here. as i will id in my article on this bridge next week, a new building is going in so close to the bridge that it would be very easy for someone to jump right on innocent people below. as it is they almost hit rowers below the bridge, take out power lines in the neighborhood and smash into peoples' cars. it striukes me as eminently sensible to stop these jumpers in this situation because it's a serious public safety issue fgor people who make the choice to continue living their lives regardless of what troublesthey havve. more on this later.

It's about optics and convenience. This bridge is the most jumpable with only 300 jumpers since 1932 (an average of four per year) and has become such a public safety hazard that soon we'll be wrapping it in webbing and this will, of course, lead to what? Wrapping trains in yards of cotton?

As a reporter I've only seen after photos of jumpers, but as a civilian I have seen a real-life dude turned into a fifteen-foot long smear because of a subway. Civilians get to see the stains left from people walking into subways as well as the people at standing at the bottom of a bridge... and I'm sure more than a few subway or train engineers have been traumatized along the way. I know I've seen him walk off the platform a few times since. But that's not the point. The point is this webbing BS isn't going to save lives, it'll possibly prevent some nightmares and some therepy costs, but the suicide rate for the State of Washington ain't going down because of some interlaced ropes.

And making this a public safety issue based on nine incidents is a little bit of a stretch. If that's the criteria for government action and protecting pedestrians maybe we should do something about the hundreds of people killed through car accidents... or, I don't know, maybe gun crime.

Not sure where you get the idea it's a PUBLIC RELATIONS STUNT, Gabriel.

I agree where you appear to make a point of placing a net one place might change the option to a new place--of course it will. But frankly, when I saw the nets at Harborview Medical center they looked comforting more than like a joke for frat party-goers. I know under that net homeless people sleep, I suppose a body landing on a homeless person could be considered what? a publicity stunt? Think anyone would care? When a body hits something hard when hitting a parked car, cement bench --well watch the 9-11 documentary and listen to the bodies hit the awning above the firemen as the people jumped from the terrorist attack---that sound was of human beings falling like rain.
Public Relations stunt my ass.

I'm sure a bridge jumper leaves a mess that causes distress. Suicide by gun also leaves a mess. Hanging? Yuck. In 2003, I very nearly died from poison and I'm sure that wasn't too attractive either.

Suicide, attempted or completed, is ugly.

If the goal is truly saving lives and preventing distress, guns are far more readily available than bridges, so why not start there? I'm with Gabriel on this one. It seems to me that we're doing here what we always do: pretend to care and then end up doing something ineffective and expensive.

I'm not equipped with statistics or proclaim to understand much, but it seems that trying to save one life at one bridge might be worth something.

Sure, it's worth something. (Every life is precious, as Bush43 would say, referring to American stem cells, of course, not Iraqi people.)

The more pertinent question is: Are society's perceived and real benefits from a bridge net worth diverting precious mental health funds so that a crisis line has to CLOSE AT 5:00 P.M.???? I say no, no it doesn't. Let's stop that guy from going down to the bridge in the first place.

The mental health offices all close at 5pm anyway--and the crisis lines are on-call all night long here(Seattle).Most of those workers close the doors and turn their pagers on at that point. I'm sure the case managers don't want a call that one of their clients is on any bridge.[just my opinion].This state is deficit in all mental health service funding, and nothing is being taken from that for the bridge.As a matter of fact I'm sure most mental health workers here will be grateful for one less death on their watch.

Our after-hours crisis line is 911. From personal experience, I can honestly say it's a stupid waste of taxpayers' money NOT to have a 24-hour mental health crisis line. If there were such a system in place, maybe I wouldn't need to go down to the bridge, safety-netted or not.

We'd all be grateful for one less suicide. I'm talking about spreading limited resources in the most efficient manner. Do I really have to state that I'm against bridge jumping? Okay, for the record, I'm against bridge jumping and I'm anti-suicide in general.

A very distressing point regarding this issue, is how these "jumpers" are considered as non-persons by the media. One rarely reads about these occurrences in the media. On the rare occassions that they are mentioned, it is usually a few lines, with no name, information, or anything else.
Aurora Bridge suicides are at crisis proportions, yet one would not know that due to the uncaring attitude of the media.
Does anyone out there have names and dates of friends, loved ones, or anyone else who has jumped from the Aurora Bridge?

Dave

I just was offered a wonderful volunteer job as a peer counselor for a suicide hotline.

They don't care I am a suicide survivor, it's actually going to help me. I applied for this 2 years ago, and they finally have an opening.

If I can help one person, this will be the greatest thing I have ever done.

Susan, I stand humbled in your presence, as a person who has called a hotline, I would only hope to have you answer my call. I know it will be just one of the greatest things you will have ever done, no doubt about it. Thank you, for this.

Susan, that's wonderful. Good for you! As someone who has been there yourself, you'll be invaluable in helping someone else. Good luck. (I guess "knock 'em dead" wouldn't really be appropriate here.)

Just another comment to Gabriel about the Bloor St Viaduct Bridge. With that particular bridge the problem was not just witnesses, it was also that people were falling into traffic. The bridge crosses over a major highway. Bodies hitting cars (or pavement) in fast-moving traffic can lead to a lot more fatalities. That "luminous veil" fence is ugly as all-get-out but not one person has died since it went up.

Phil, I'm looking forward to your article. I've done some research into suicide bridges because of one in Vancouver; nobody wants to build a fence here either.