Rancho’s bridges: Could barriers stop suicides?

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – Brooke Vargas can’t bring herself to go near the Santa Margarita Parkway bridge since her aunt took her life there last month.

When Michele McKay’s body was found in the dry creek bed below the 66-foot-high bridge linking Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita, Vargas and other family members were devastated.

Vargas remembers her aunt as a beautiful woman with a huge heart who would help anyone. So she and other family members were concerned when McKay left her Lake Forest home on Sept. 3 without any personal belongings. They reported the 56-year-old woman missing, telling authorities she had been distraught over medical and financial issues. Sheriff’s deputies discovered her body five days later.

“I think Rancho Santa Margarita bridges are becoming a popular spot for mentally sick people and it’s heartbreaking,” Vargas said. “I don’t want to go there knowing people have done horrible things there.”

Eight deaths and six thwarted suicide attempts have been reported at the four bridges in Rancho Santa Margarita since the city incorporated in 2000. Just since March, three people were talked down by Orange County sheriff’s deputies, one man who survived a jump from the Santa Margarita Parkway Bridge in 2011 died in July after he jumped off a bridge a mile out of town, and McKay’s body was found just after Labor Day.

The city, ranked in 2010 and 2009 as the state’s safest among cities with similar population sizes in an FBI report, is making headlines over the recent bridge suicides and deputy rescues. And that prompted Councilman Jerry Holloway and several council candidates to say it’s time for the city to install safety barriers on the bridges to keep troubled people from jumping and deputies from risking their lives to protect them. Other city leaders contend that safety precautions won’t deter those determined to take their own lives.

“It’s very depressing and discouraging to see this go on,” said Holloway, who in 2010 called an emergency meeting after an earlier rash of suicides. “I’m wondering if we would have preventive measures, would these things have occurred? It’s happened enough over a period of time to show it will occur again.”

Holloway, whose term on the City Council expires this year, says he hopes to get the issue before his colleagues by the end of October.

CITY REPORT: BARRIERS DETER JUMPS

 

In 2010, the City Council heard a report stating that bridge barriers, netting and signs were proven to stop suicide attempts. Council members reviewed the costs – ranging from $3,000 for signs to $13.6 million for exterior netting. They also looked at a survey that said 78.2 percent of residents opposed any fencing or netting, many saying it would block views and degrade the look of the bridges.

Holloway didn’t get the support he needed. Council members put off a decision on the netting and fencing and asked staff to report back when new information became available. Instead, the city posted suicide prevention information on its website.

Despite the recent headlines, city officials have said the city’s suicide rate was at or below the county’s numbers, citing a 2009 report. However, the 2010 county report shows Rancho Santa Margarita’s rate is 11.5 per 100,000 and the county’s rate is 9.3 per 100,000.

“It happens all over the place and you don’t read about it,” Mayor Tony Beall said, adding that he had not seen the latest report on suicide rates. “You hear about the ones where people hurl themselves onto freeways. Even if you invest in the greatest level of protection to save people from themselves, people who want to hurt themselves will, no matter what.”

The city did add some safety features on the Santa Margarita Parkway Bridge after Gregory Wolters, a city contractor, died in an accidental fall in 2006. His family sued the city, claiming the bridge had inadequate lighting and railing. In 2007, the city used a $283,000 grant from the California Department of Transportation to replace tubular hand railing with cable railing.

A year later the city added more lights and also put poles in the middle of the two Santa Margarita Parkway bridge segments to prevent people from falling between them. The city has already spent more than $500,000 in safety improvements, Beall said.

DEPUTIES SAVE LIVES

 

In recent months, sheriff’s deputies who have stopped people from jumping off the bridges have been recognized by the City Council and given certificates for their lifesaving deeds. In each case, the deputies put themselves in harm’s way.

In June, Deputy Tim Africano jackknifed his body over a chain-link fence to grab a teen inches from a 50-foot plunge to the 241 toll road below.

In August, a man told his father he was going to commit suicide by jumping off a city bridge. Deputies found the man near Antonio Parkway and Tijeras Creek Road. They chased him across several lanes of traffic and tried to communicate with him. In the end, Deputy Felipe Martinez pulled him from the rail of the bridge.

While Holloway applauded their efforts, he said they, too, are subject to dangers that might not be there had safety barriers been installed.

“It’s a long shot to leave it to being found by a deputy,” he said. “Now they’re the last line of defense. If we do something and prevent even one suicide, it’s a win. If we go five years and there’s been no suicide, maybe we have a success. You can’t measure this like you can measure some things you spend money on.”

Sheriff’s Lt. Brian Schmutz knew about the suicides when he took over as the city’s chief of police in 2011. He makes sure his deputies do what they can to monitor the bridges for anything suspicious. But he says he has to balance monitoring the bridges with keeping residents throughout the city safe.

“We have a duty to protect a person from injury even if it’s from harming themselves,” Schmutz said. “We also have a duty to family members to get the person home safely or to the treatment they need.”

ADVOCATES: BARRIERS STOP SUICIDES

 

National and local suicide-prevention groups say data supports bridge barriers, netting and signs as effective ways of stopping suicides.

Kita Curry, president and CEO of Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, recently approved by the county as the operator of the Orange County Crisis Prevention Hotline, is an advocate of bridge barriers.

“Barriers do reduce the risk of suicides. We know they can be very effective,” Curry said. “Often local governments are concerned about the cost. Cheap barriers may not be quite as effective but they are better than no barrier at all.”

John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, wrote a report in 2007 that looked at how successful barriers were in preventing suicides from bridges.

A barrier put up at the Bloor Street Viaduct, a bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia, is an example of a barrier that still allows views, according to the report by the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Committee. The barrier, dubbed the “luminous veil,” is constructed with wider-set poles to allow views through the netting.

By 2003, the 480 deaths by suicide from the Bloor Street Viaduct were second only to those from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Despite mixed public opinion and resistance from some community groups, suicide-prevention advocates got city officials to install the barrier. Since that time there have been no suicides, the report said. A fundraising campaign raised $3 million of the $5.5 million construction cost for the Canadian bridge barrier.

When barriers were removed from the Grafton Bridge in New Zealand in 1996, the site experienced a fivefold increase in suicides, the report said. Later, when the barriers were reinstalled in 2003, no more suicides occurred, according to the report.

TAKING ANOTHER LOOK

Two years ago, Holloway called for the emergency council meeting to consider ways to make the four city bridges safer.

At the time, some on the council said safety barriers wouldn’t deter those who want to jump. Holloway’s philosophy was, “maybe so, maybe not, but if it keeps people from out of our area away, that’s good.”

Now he wants the city to take another look.

“I’d like to see city government look for collaborative ways to put preventative measures in place,” he said. “If we can save one life by having preventive measures, then we have success. If there are funds for fencing and netting, we should be looking at this.”

The bridge suicides have also become a topic of discussion at Rancho Santa Margarita council election debates.

“I was getting my hair cut and the guy who cuts my hair asked me if anyone else has jumped from our bridges,” council candidate Kenney Hrabik said during a recent forum. “We talk about $19 million in reserves, we’re safe from crime statistics, but when it comes to suicides, we’re No. 1 in deaths.”

Hrabik said he regularly brings up the issue with residents on his stumps through town. About 80-90 percent of those he talks to are in support of some kind of fencing, he said.

“I will personally take this on,” he said. “If the council won’t use some of the $19 million in reserves, I will find a way to personally fundraise the money. We’re getting to be known as the bridge to jump from; that’s not a headline Rancho needs.”

Source: www.ocregister.com

By ERIKA I. RITCHIE/ THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

If you are charged with a crime, contact an experienced Orange County Bail Bondsman to assist you in any bail situtation.