PORT ANGELES — The City Council has set aside time during a Nov. 25 work session to discuss potential suicide prevention measures for the Eighth Street bridges.
The discussion, prompted by the Oct. 11 death of 21-year-old Stephanie Diane Caldwell, will be during a meeting that begins at 5 p.m. in council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
About a half-dozen people a year threaten to jump off an Eighth Street bridge, Police Sgt. Glen Roggenbuck said Saturday afternoon.
“It’s fairly frequently, but I don’t think it’s once a month,” he said.
Roggenbuck said a 28-year-old woman told a couple of people earlier Saturday that she was going to jump off one of the bridges.
She was contacted by police on the city’s west side, detained under the state Involuntary Treatment Act and taken to the emergency room at Olympic Medical Center, he said.
Bridge background
City Manager Dan McKeen told council members Tuesday that city staff is collecting data on the bridges and potential design modifications.
Changes could include safety fencing for the bridges, which span the Valley Creek and Tumwater gorges 98 feet above the ground at their highest point — and have 4-foot, 6-inch combination wall-railings as barriers.
Councilman Lee Whetham suggested that the discussion Nov. 25 include the participation of a mental health professional to help the council make a decision.
“Is a fence the right way? I don’t know,” he said.
“I’d like to hear from a professional to help shape our decision.”
The original bridges, built in 1936, had 7-foot, 8-inch fences that were added in 1959 to the central areas of the spans.
The new bridges were opened Feb. 24, 2009, as part of a $24.6 million project.
Between April 27 and May 18 of that year, two men attempted suicide, one threatened suicide, and a fourth man leaped to his death, according to police records.
In 2012, a city utility employee grabbed a person who was in the process of jumping off one of the bridges.
In July 2012, a 20-year-old Port Angeles woman jumped to her death from the western Eighth Street bridge into the Tumwater Creek ravine.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
