Good News

By comparing the number of completed suicides at specific hotspots where interventions had been implemented—including Gap Park in Australia, Clifton Suspension Bridge in England, and Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida—researchers found that deaths dropped from an average of 5.8 suicides each year before interventions were introduced to an average of 2.4 deaths per year afterwards. Not only did the rate of completed suicides decrease at the hotspots being studied, but in most cases there was no increase of suicide by jumping at nearby hotspots. In some cases, the suicide rate even went down to zero.

Opponents of the Golden Gate Bridge plan say the net will be an eyesore, and likely won’t stop people from finding other ways of dying by suicide. Yet other efforts have shown heartening results, including a similar net placed around the Munster Terrace cathedral in Bern, Switzerland, where two or three people had been jumping to their deaths per year prior to 1998. (After a safety net was built, no suicides occurred from 1998 to 2005.) Anecdotally, survivors of attempted suicide have also stated that such a net would have deterred them from jumping. “It would’ve stopped me right then and there,” said Kevin Berthia, a supporter of the Golden Gate safety net who almost jumped in 2005 but was rescued by a bridge worker, in an interview with ABC 7 News.