DNSerror
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Hi everyone. I just did a Google search for "golden gate bridge suicide prevention." The second result was this Slate.com article from last October, which quotes psychiatrists and psychologists who deal with suicide and contains links to studies about suicide prevention measures.
There's a lot of information in the article. Some key quotes that relate to comments in this thread include:
"The evidence showing that bridge barriers work is “overwhelming,” says Paula Clayton, professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and former medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Most people die the first time they try to kill themselves. The easiest way to prevent suicide is by restricting access to methods with a high risk of death, Clayton says—such as jumping from a bridge."
"A 2013 meta-analysis led by Australian suicide expert Jane Pirkis reviewed studies of deterrents at suicide hot spots around the world. The interventions reduced suicides by jumping at the sites by about 85 percent. Although there was an uptick in jumping at neighboring sites in some cities in the decades after deterrents were erected, the dramatic drop in jumping at the hot spots led to reduced overall rates of suicide by jumping."
"There is an enduring notion that if you erect a barrier on a suicide magnet, people will just go somewhere else. The idea that you can’t stop a suicidal individual is “absolutely false,” says Mel Blaustein, who as president of the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California helped convince bridge officials to approve a deterrent. People often fixate on specific means of suicide, he says. For those drawn to the Golden Gate Bridge, the 4-foot rail suggests no one cares if they jump, as one note left on the bridge made painfully clear: “Why do you make it so easy?” "
"This myth that barriers don’t work was first debunked in 1978 in a landmark study by University of California–Berkeley clinical psychologist Richard Seiden, who tracked the fates of 515 people restrained from jumping between 1937 and 1971. Although a few of the thwarted jumpers went on to kill themselves, 94 percent were either alive years later or had died of natural causes. Seiden concluded that the findings underscore the “crisis oriented” nature of suicide."
"As director of psychiatry at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, Blaustein sees suicidal people “every single day of the week.” If you can curb that initial impulsive attempt, he says, patients often realize, even without treatment, that they don’t want to die. Many leave the hospital within 24 hours."
"Roughly 90 percent of those who jump from the Golden Gate Bridge and survive do not go on to kill themselves, according to the Bridge Rail Foundation, dedicated to erecting a barrier on the bridge. The figure echoes the findings of a 2002 systematic review, which showed that roughly 9 out of 10 people who survived a suicide attempt did not subsequently die by suicide. (If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call 1-800-273-TALK [8255] for help from a trained counselor at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.)"
"When the bridge district polled residents in 2008, half of nearly 3,500 respondents objected to a barrier, mostly in the belief that it wouldn’t prevent suicide. Many resented spending public funds on people who want to die. “People need to suffer the consequences of their actions,” wrote one commenter. “Better to build a middle barrier for the bridge to help innocent people.” Virtually every article about suicides on the bridge elicits similar sentiments."
(The 'middle barrier' thing is referring to the fact that there is not a physical barrier between northbound and southbound traffic on the bridge. The 'innocent people' that the commenter is referring to are people driving on the bridge who presumably are not trying to kill themselves, as opposed to the troubled people who jump off the bridge.)
I'll also quote the final part of the article, in which the author discloses a personal interest, referring to a man whose body was found in the waters near the bridge in March 2013:
"How many pedestrians and cyclists streamed past the middle-aged man on that chilly March day, oblivious to the trauma that drove him to end it all? If anyone had asked me how that lifeless body wound up in the frigid waters off Marshall’s Beach, I could have told them about the striking young man who moved from New Jersey to San Francisco 33 years ago, when his penetrating dark brown eyes still flashed with joy. I would have told them how the flashes grew rarer over time, replaced by unexplained fits of rage and mystifying mood swings. I would have said that he pushed away all who cared for him, and that the last time I saw him, nearly a decade ago, the light in his eyes was gone."
[edited to get rid of a long hyperlink that was messing up the margins]
< Message edited by DNSerror -- 3/16/2014 7:49:12 PM >
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