Toronto considering erecting suicide barriers at 10 bridges
The City of Toronto plans to look at 10 bridges and consider installing barriers to prevent suicides.

TheStar.com
May 9, 2018
Samantha Beattie

On the rail bridge’s ledge, a man looked down at the traffic below. He spread his arms wide and inhaled.

That’s when Aeron Soosaipillai says he was sure the man was going to jump.

From behind the railing at the Scarborough GO station last month, Soosaipillai acted. He wrapped his arms around the man’s chest and heaved him back over. The two collapsed on the concrete platform.

The man was sobbing, Soosaipillai said. Soosaipillai, a 20-year-old Ryerson student, felt a swell of emotion and heard people clapping around him.

He recalls saying to the man: “I’m proud of you, you’re amazing. That’s a certain point in life you’re not going back to.”

According to a City of Toronto staff report being considered at the executive committee Monday, there are more than 250 suicides a year in Toronto.

The majority of those who die by suicide are male, between 25 and 44 years old, the report said. Ten of these deaths on average happen at bridges — a statistic city staff want to remedy by possibly putting up barriers at bridges, said the report.

Transportation Services plans to review 10 “priority” bridges, although it isn’t releasing the locations “to avoid attracting additional suicide risk,” said city spokesperson Cheryl San Juan.

Along with barriers, it will also consider placing emergency phones or crisis-line signs near bridges and adding patrols or camera surveillance, said the report.

Soosaipillai said he thinks the barriers are a good idea but he wonders if the city will only focus on big bridges, when suicides can also happen at smaller bridges such as the one at the Scarborough GO station.

As he approached the man on the rail bridge that April afternoon, he started talking to him as calmly as he could.

“I was trying to convince him to think about what he was doing,” Soosaipillai said. “If I didn’t there would’ve been really bad consequences for him and me — we’d lose a life.”

By the time Soosaipillai had pulled the man over the railing, police had arrived at the scene and took over. Soosaipillai went to class, but said he left early, overwhelmed with emotion and unable to concentrate.

“I’ve always been one to help out people in anyway I can, but this is really huge,” he said. “Now every time I pass a GO train station or even an underpass, I think of this kind of stuff.”

Metrolinx recognized Soosaipillai actions with a safety award in late April.

The Bloor Viaduct (officially the Prince Edward Viaduct) is the only bridge in Toronto that has had a barrier installed for the sole purpose of preventing suicides, confirmed the city.

Nearly 500 people died by suicide at the viaduct between 1919, when the bridge was completed, and when the barrier was installed in 2003, the Star has reported. It now has about 10,000 long steel rods that create an open, yet impenetrable wall. The city built the barrier for $5.6 million.

The physical barrier has been effective at preventing suicides, research suggests.

“Barriers increase the chance that someone seriously contemplating suicide will have more time to allow the crisis to pass, rethink the situation and/or obtain help,” the report said.

A 2017 Sunnybrook study found the barrier reduced the suicide rate at the viaduct from nine deaths a year on average in the decade before to a single death since. Suicide deaths at Toronto bridges dropped from 19 a year to 10.

“We find if someone goes to the Bloor Viaduct and suicide is their plan, but they find there’s a barrier, in the moment they don’t create another plan,” said Melissa Bosman, Distress Centres’ helpline services senior manager. “They walk away from it and hopefully are OK and able to connect to support and help.”

There’s also an emergency phone at the viaduct, which Bosman confirmed the helpline has received calls from.

Bosman was part of the advisory group that helped city staff prepare its report, and said along with barriers, the city needs to more preventative measures.

Subway stations don’t have platform edge doors, despite 18 suicide attempts and 26 deaths by suicide in 2017, according to the TTC. The transit agency has made a commitment to study the feasibility of installing platform edge doors and expects the cost would exceed a billion dollars, said communications director Brad Ross.

About 12 people die by suicide involving GO trains every year, said Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins. The transit agency has installed mental health support signs along its rail network, and its staff, including transit safety officers, are trained to help people in crisis.