Posted Jul 18, 2015, 9:44 PM
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Reason and Freedom
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Vancouver/Toronto
Posts: 4,016
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City Wants To Put Suicide Cage Around Burrard Bridge
Serious downer.
It looks like the city also wants to put a suicide cage around Granville Bridge too. And a suicide cage is eventually going to be put around Lions Gate Bridge.
Quote:
City officials say they want to add suicide-prevention fencing to the city’s heritage Art Deco bridge when they undertake a $35-million renovation.
VANCOUVER -- On average, about once a year someone leaps to their death from Vancouver’s Burrard Bridge. Compared to other area bridges, it isn’t the favoured spot to publicly end one’s life; the adjacent Granville Bridge and the Lions Gate Bridge are more often chosen for suicides.
But now city officials say they want to add suicide-prevention fencing to the city’s heritage Art Deco bridge when they undertake a $35-million renovation.
The plan has drawn the ire of heritage buffs and the film industry, who complain the proposal was not included in open houses where the public was asked for comment. They argue the fencing will ruin the look of the bridge and that it will impact movie shoots and car commercials that use it as a backdrop.
It is a delicate matter to raise concerns about preserving the heritage and esthetic looks of a landmark city bridge when talking about how to prevent suicides from it, admits Anthony Norfolk, a member of Vancouver’s heritage commission.
“A lot of people are running for cover because they are afraid if they don’t support it they’ll be accused of not caring for human life,” said Norfolk, who voted against recommending the bridge rehabilitation project after seeing the latest drawings, including the fencing.
The city had no plans to put suicide fencing on the bridge until Dr. John Carsley, a medical health officer for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, pointed out that a 2008 coroners’ inquest had recommended such structures on all major bridges. He’s been alarmed at the high number of bridge jumping deaths. According to the B.C. Coroners Service, since 2006 at least 102 people have died jumping off eight of the region’s most accessible bridges. That doesn’t account for those who survived, or suicides that were not witnessed.
At the top of the list is the Lions Gate Bridge, with 33 deaths; at the bottom is the relatively low Cambie Bridge, with two. Seven people used Burrard Bridge.
Carsley believes many of those deaths could be prevented by “removing the means,” or in other words, putting up a barrier. Such fencing has been shown to be very effective in stopping what he called “impulsive” suicides, he said. Stopping determined suicides such as by hanging, or drug or alcohol overdoses, B.C.’s top two methods, is much more difficult.
“What the data shows is that people who jump from bridges are quite different from other kinds of suicide attempts,” he said. “In general, if one is thwarted from jumping from a bridge, you don’t seek other means of killing yourself.”
Suicide fencing has already been added to the Second Narrows Bridge, and the province has agreed to add it to Lions Gate when it undertakes further renovations. Granville Bridge may get it when the city undertakes renovations later.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/S...533/story.html
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I would love to see this data. I seriously doubt it supports Carsley's interpretation that removing bridge jumping from a long list of impulsive ways to commit suicide (e.g. stepping in front of vehicular traffic or Skytrain or leaping from a condo balcony, etc., just use your imagination) will result in a net reduction in Metro Vancouver suicides.
Carsley is the same medical health officer who recommended that council block the Edgewater Casino development at BC Place.
Last edited by Prometheus; Aug 13, 2015 at 5:18 AM.
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