Learned something new about the nature of suicides from this Slate article. It advocates the use of bridge barriers to prevent people from jumping off bridges.
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.
I am taken aback by these statistics. Just knowing these numbers might prevent some people from attempting suicide.
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