With National Suicide Prevention Week upon us, Seattle has found ways of prevention since they have a historic bridge known for suicidal jumps. After a Aurora Bridge record of 50 suicides since 1995, the Washington State Department of Transportation erected barriers on the bridge to prevent more suicides. More than 230 people have taken their lives at the bridge. Click below to read more.
Ryan Thurston remembers the first time he saw a man jump to his death from the Aurora Bridge, landing in the Seattle parking lot just beneath his office window in the fall of 2005.
“It was a balmy Seattle morning, a typical morning, checking email and chatting with co-workers,” said Thurston, now 35. “I had a window looking out at the bridge. I glanced down at the parking lot and saw a guy head down, blood coming from his head. He was probably 20 yards away.
“At first I thought he had tripped, then we all looked at the bridge and could see his truck with the door open,” he said.
It happened again a month later and continued “on a pretty regular basis,” Thurston said.
By 2006, a record nine people in one year had jumped to their deaths from the bridge, including a 15-year-old girl.
But since last year, safety barriers have been in place, thanks in large part to efforts by Thurston, who, after being so traumatized, founded Seattle Friends, a suicide-prevention organization.
More than 230 people have taken their lives at the Aurora Bridge, making it the second deadliest “suicide bridge” in the United States, behind the Golden Gate Bridge, according to Seattle Friends. Since 1995, 50 people have died, and more than half of the victims landed on the pavement and busy intersections below.
Broadly speaking, a federal study shows, 8.3 million Americans — 3.7 percent of all adults — have serious thoughts of suicide each year; 2.3 million make a plan and 1.1 million attempt suicide, resulting in an estimated 37,000 suicide deaths each year.
Some studies show that iconic bridges and other physical structures draw those with suicidal impulses, but if barriers are in place, many deaths can be prevented.
