EDITOR’S NOTE– This is the second article in a two-part series. The first article, which was published Sunday, is available at www.peninsuladailynews.com.
PORT ANGELES — Suicide barriers on bridges save lives, according to the state Department of Transportation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
The barriers, which are often fences of some kind, also keep people from leaping to their deaths and deter them from attempting or committing suicide elsewhere, a Transportation spokesman and the organization’s Web site say.
There are no such barriers on two new Eighth Street bridges that opened Feb. 24 – and where, between April 26 and May 18, two men attempted suicide, one threatened suicide while standing on the roadway, and a fourth man intentionally leapt to his death.
A fifth threatened to commit suicide there in December 2008, before they were opened.
That compares with 14 incidents of actual, threatened and attempted suicides that occurred at the site between December 1999 and December 2008.
The only two actual suicides in those nine years occurred in 2000.
Like the trestle bridges they replaced, the new spans stand 100 feet above the Valley Creek and Tumwater Creek gorges in a heavily populated area.
But the old bridges, built in 1936, had 4-foot, 2-inch fences that extended the length of the railings and 7-foot-8-inch fences that blocked jumpers from leaping off the central parts of the spans — the deepest parts of the gorges.
The higher fences were added in 1959.
In contrast, the new bridges have a 4-foot, 6-inch combination wall-railing.
Parents opinion
The parents of Joshua Reynolds of Port Angeles said in an interview that, according to what they were told by police, a fence at the Valley Creek Bridge would have given police enough time to save their son.
Reynolds, 19, leapt to his death at about 3:30 a.m. April 26.
Still, City Manager Kent Myers said in an interview that the city has no intention of building a suicide prevention fence at the bridges.
In his May 22 “Weekly Update Report,” available at www.cityofpa.us, Myers wrote:
“The implication that the city has somehow created new opportunities for suicide attempts with the reconstruction of the new bridges is simply not accurate.”
He directs readers to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Web site, www.afsp.org, as “an excellent resource of information.”
In fact, the organization says suicide prevention barriers work.
“According to the research we funded and additional studies worldwide, prevention barriers on bridges have been effective at reducing suicide,” says the organization in an Oct. 10, 2008, statement supporting the installation of safety netting at the Golden Gate Bridge.
In addition, the state Department of Transportation, in deciding to install fencing on the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, said research indicates that those who have attempted suicide from a bridge and are intercepted do not follow through elsewhere.
Verticle pickets
State Department of Transportation spokesman Greg Phipps authored a question-and-answer report on the suicide-prevention fence being planned for the Aurora Bridge in Seattle.
It’s available at www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR99.
Construction on the 8-foot-9-inch fence in Seattle will begin later this year.
It incorporates vertical pickets — similar to the wrought-iron style rejected by the Port Angeles City Council for the Eighth Street bridges– that make it substantially difficult to gain a hand-hold or foothold near the top, which deters jumpers, Phipps said in the report.
Simply having a fence makes a difference, he said.
“Research indicates that just having a barrier in place is an effective deterrent for individuals who wish to attempt suicide by jumping,” he said in the report, adding that those who jump off tall structures to commit suicide do so as “highly compulsive acts with only seconds between the impulse and the jump.”
In Reynolds’ case, about six seconds elapsed between police shining a spotlight on him and his jump from the Valley Creek Bridge.
Phipps said barriers not only make it more difficult to jump, but also give others time to intervene and allow time for the potential suicide victim to reconsider.
Officer David Arand was “about arm’s length” from preventing Reynolds from vaulting the railing, according to Arand’s police report.
Research results
Phipps said it’s a common misperception that, once deterred, a potential suicide victim will go elsewhere to commit the act.
“Studies show otherwise,” he said, citing a 1978 University of California study of 500 people who were stopped from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.
The aftermath: Records show only 6 percent of those people committed suicide in some other way.
The $7.9 million Aurora Bridge fence was funded after the city of Seattle installed a suicide hotline on the bridge in 2006, followed by citizens lobbying the state Legislature. It’s slated for construction in 2010.
That lobbying effort is typically how suicide barriers get installed, Phipps said in an interview.
But suicide barriers can be expensive and more likely than not would have to be funded by the city.
Eighth Street bridges project director Santosh Kurvilla of Lacey-based Exeltech Consulting Inc., which managed the construction project, said a tunnel-like, caged suicide prevention fence for both Eighth Street bridges would cost between $1 million and $2 million.
“It comes down to cost,” Kurvilla said.
Legislator surprised
Democratic House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said Thursday she was surprised there wasn’t a higher barrier on the bridges.
“You’d think they’d have it, because a little kid who’s 8, 9, 10 could start messing around on the bridge,” said Kessler, who represents Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
“It’s kind of weird that all of a sudden it seems to be such an attraction.”
The state Department of Transportation will install suicide-prevention fences on state highways, not city roads like Eighth Street, so building the fence would be the city’s responsibility, she said.
Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
