Fatal Fall From Pontcysyllte aqueduct

[nicknorman]

I think a few people on here are hinting that committing suicide by means of splattering your body all over the place is somewhat selfish. However that is a pointless view because, almost by definition, the person committing the act is not acting logically and since "selfish" is an invention of the human brain, one cannot be too surprised that someone with a malfunctioning brain doesn't see it as selfish.

[alan_fincher]

(I realise this makes me as guilty of speculation as everybody else, before anybody points it out.)

 

However it is perhaps worth pointing out that plenty of bad things have happened to youngsters of this kind of age, which have nothing to do with suicide.

 

I can well imagine situations after a few beers involving dares about climbing over handrails or trying to walk along them. Remember the loss of life when someone was egged on to jump a narrow lock after a few drinks, and didn't make it.

 

Until an official explanation is forthcoming, I think we can't know if this was an intended death or just somebody thinking they could do something highly ill advised.

[Guest]

I think a few people on here are hinting that committing suicide by means of splattering your body all over the place is somewhat selfish. However that is a pointless view because, almost by definition, the person committing the act is not acting logically and since "selfish" is an invention of the human brain, one cannot be too surprised that someone with a malfunctioning brain doesn't see it as selfish.

Greenie for that.

[adam1uk]

(I realise this makes me as guilty of speculation as everybody else, before anybody points it out.)

 

However it is perhaps worth pointing out that plenty of bad things have happened to youngsters of this kind of age, which have nothing to do with suicide.

 

I can well imagine situations after a few beers involving dares about climbing over handrails or trying to walk along them. Remember the loss of life when someone was egged on to jump a narrow lock after a few drinks, and didn't make it.

 

Until an official explanation is forthcoming, I think we can't know if this was an intended death or just somebody thinking they could do something highly ill advised.

When the police say 'no suspicious circumstances', that's usually code for suicide (or natural causes). Anything else, and they'd tend to say it was unexplained.

Edited May 31, 2016 by adam1uk

[magnetman]

.

Edited May 31, 2016 by magnetman

[roland elsdon]

Samaritans are pragmatic volunteers. Their religion is irrelevant and they are not allowed to judge preach or lecture. They stay up all night maning phones as volunteers. My sister is one and I am proud of her. Personally as a retired mental health nurse consultant I can no longer do such work. I am by now so burned out i am immune to such threats and therefore useless, having been threatened with suicide innumerable times by persons with no real intent, While knowing that except in the most obvious cases prediction of the risk is impossible . Systems cannot predict suicide, nor prevent it.

Suicide is not tragic when it is logical and informed ( terminal cancer) but in the young or mentally ill or temporarily traumatised it is arguably the most damaging cause of death to society.

[GoodGurl]

A quote from facebook,

B***** P*** We were moored about 200yds from the incident, youth was walking along the OUTSIDE of the safety rail when one of the upright rails gave way. Not thought to be suicide by the locals and rumour has it he'd 'had a few'

[gazza]

I have 4 suicides in my wider family (mother, 2 uncles and a cousin).

 

One of my uncles attempted a fall from height but landed on someone so he used a shotgun instead which worked.

 

The other 3 (my mum, a cousin and another uncle) all chose hanging as their preferred technique.

 

I'm not surprised if Ponty silty aqueduct is a bit of a hotspot but also not sure what can be done about it anyway?

 

I would not choose such a high structure personally. Its a long way down and you might change your mind

 

Anyway its sad really but maybe not as sad as someone one living in an unbearably depressed state of mind

 

I think an express train is probably quite a good option.

 

Edit to remove a bit as I was repeating myself

 

I think I would be tempted to jump rather than have to deal with ruddy patronising Christians

That's a lot of heartache in a lifetime. Not really sure what to add tbh.

 

As for the beachy head chaplaincy, no God bothering was brought up. Just a quick chat to see all was well, as I said, he seemed surprised I'd want to walk up there on a grim morning, it was as good a place to collect my thoughts as any. My grandad wasn't doing too well at the time. I was reminiscing about meals at the pub on Beachy we had had, walks at Burling Gap, that sort of thing.

He was on chain home during the war and had postings from Rye to Eastbourne.

He also was at Bawdsey very early on, we used to regularly fish out of Felixstowe Ferry so I'd think of him there too - hence my knowledge of the Orwell Bridge.

Edited May 31, 2016 by gazza

[Graham Davis]

I think an express train is probably quite a good option.

 

Perhaps you need to talk to the traumatised driver of a train that has hit a suicidal person, and the railway staff who have to clean the train, and the staff who have to walk the line collecting all the body bits, the signaller who has to report it, and the passengers who have been delayed.

[Graham Davis]

That's a fair point but I assumed that people working around trains would receive proper training to help them deal with that sort of inevitable outcome.

 

How on earth can you teach someone how to deal with that?

[Allan(nb Albert)]

Not sure what the current thinking is but I can remember my Dad used to deal with 'one unders' at Mile End on the London Underground 50 or 60 years ago.

 

I think the view at the time was that those with a war record would be immune.

[Captain Pegg]

Serious question, do they help and get used.

 

Yes and yes in answer to both questions. I have witnessed some pragmatic and effective work in this field.

 

JP

[Wanderer Vagabond]

I think a few people on here are hinting that committing suicide by means of splattering your body all over the place is somewhat selfish. However that is a pointless view because, almost by definition, the person committing the act is not acting logically and since "selfish" is an invention of the human brain, one cannot be too surprised that someone with a malfunctioning brain doesn't see it as selfish.

Curious point in that you assume that they are mentally ill. Having 'detained' someone who was trying to jump off the overbridge in Kingskerswell a number of years ago we took him to the local mental assessment unit. A member of staff there began the assessment by asking me why I thought that the person may have been suffering from mental illness, just having stopped him jumping off a bridge wasn't good enough .

 

Why people get into a suicidal frame of mind I have always had difficulty in understanding. I helped recover a young woman's body from the train line at Starcross also a number of years ago. She was in a happy relationship, had a house, job, pets the only fly in the ointment was that she suffered from acne. The treatment for acne was a drug called Roaccutane, one of the side effects of this drug were suicidal thoughts. It was this drug that the young woman was taking and her partner was convinced that the drug was the cause of her death. The drug companies at the time denied that there was a cause/effect relationship, the drug has now been withdrawn, draw your own conclusions. So here we had a drug that will cause otherwise rational people to become suicidal, it could therefore happen to anyone.

[Claude]

Unfortunately I'd say there's a good chance it was a suicide. But with this being a taboo subject in the UK we may never know - which is no help to anyone else contemplating suicide. They will continue to think that they are the only ones who have ever felt that way.

I work at Samaritans. Suicide can be a taboo subject in any country, but in my opinion is more likely to be openly discussed here in the UK than many other more conservative countries I can think of.

 

Anyway, having spoken at length to many people with thoughts or feelings of suicide I can assure you that there are different feelings associated with suicidal individuals. It may be different for each person and we shouldn't lump them all together as thinking this way or that. Many people I've spoken to are well-aware and are not under any delusion about being the only person to ever feel that way.

[magnetman]

Curious point in that you assume that they are mentally ill. Having 'detained' someone who was trying to jump off the overbridge in Kingskerswell a number of years ago we took him to the local mental assessment unit. A member of staff there began the assessment by asking me why I thought that the person may have been suffering from mental illness, just having stopped him jumping off a bridge wasn't good enough .

 

Why people get into a suicidal frame of mind I have always had difficulty in understanding. I helped recover a young woman's body from the train line at Starcross also a number of years ago. She was in a happy relationship, had a house, job, pets the only fly in the ointment was that she suffered from acne. The treatment for acne was a drug called Roaccutane, one of the side effects of this drug were suicidal thoughts. It was this drug that the young woman was taking and her partner was convinced that the drug was the cause of her death. The drug companies at the time denied that there was a cause/effect relationship, the drug has now been withdrawn, draw your own conclusions. So here we had a drug that will cause otherwise rational people to become suicidal, it could therefore happen to anyone.

I'm sure drugs can be very dangerous.

 

My mother had been depressed on and off for years. She was from a family with a lot of suicide so I am not saying drugs killed her but..

her successful suicide did coincide with her doctor changing her medication from Citalopram to Venlafaxine.

 

So I googled Venlafaxine oops

[magnetman]

I find it unlikely that someone with no depression problems at all would go out and kill themselves due to medication.

 

Perhaps the Acne was a visible sign of someone suffering from high levels of stress without being able to express it.

 

Or perhaps there are groups of people who are genetically predisposed to suicide. Scarily there have been studies on that in the US All sorts of factors but I don't think if you gave the acne drug to 100 people randomly it would cause a spike in the statistics. (you would have to try people without Acne to widen the group otherwise it is too self selecting)

 

 

 

Imo

 

Typos

Edited June 1, 2016 by magnetman

[patty-ann]

I was once prescribed medication that had listed as possible side effects that it enhanced suicidal thoughts..i.e. you had to be in that mind set for this medication to work on those thoughts..it was disastrous as they upped dose to maximum to achieve results and rapidly had to bring me off them altogether.

So I think from personal experience if one is in a negative frame of mind certain drugs can feed this and cause someone to try suicide. I don't think they are responsible for introduction but if the negativity is there then they'll work against positive mind set.

[BruceinSanity]

I was once prescribed medication that had listed as possible side effects that it enhanced suicidal thoughts..i.e. you had to be in that mind set for this medication to work on those thoughts..it was disastrous as they upped dose to maximum to achieve results and rapidly had to bring me off them altogether.

So I think from personal experience if one is in a negative frame of mind certain drugs can feed this and cause someone to try suicide. I don't think they are responsible for introduction but if the negativity is there then they'll work against positive mind set.

Where most people face with a difficult situation in their lives might briefly consider suicide, but only as option 25 or so, for some of us it's always about option 3, and for those folk a drug like the ones we're discussing can push it up to Option 1.

 

I used to work for a boss who was an authority on suicide and have lost a brother and a nephew to unexpected suicide, so it's a risk I'm horribly aware of in myself.

[Nightwatch]

I had been diagnosed with depression years ago. Not really severe but seems to be controlled by medication. I wish I wasn't depressed. Good days and not so good days.

 

Years ago, I had to visit my GP as I was having really bad thoughts and I believed, sometimes still do, that I had done my bit for this life, brought up three smashing sons, all left home and have their own families now, I was thinking of giving up work soon and just felt empty. I was in a dark place. I didn't realise until my brain sorted itself out. To me, it's not a taboo subject. Difficult to understand if you're not involved or effected by this illness.

 

Not the solution, but it has helped, I now live on a boat.

 

Martyn

Edited June 1, 2016 by Nightwatch

[Jamboat]

I find it unlikely that someone with no depression problems at all would go out and kill themselves due to medication.

Perhaps the Acne was a visible sign of someone suffering from high levels of stress without being able to express it.

Or perhaps there are groups of people who are genetically predisposed to suicide. Scarily there have been studies on that in the US All sorts of factors but I don't think if you gave the acne drug to 100 people randomly it would cause a spike in the statistics. (you would have to try people without Acne to widen the group otherwise it is too self selecting)

Imo

Typos

A few years ago I was prescribed topomax, ( topiramate) it's an anticonvulsant but also prescribed for migraines which I was struggling with, within a few days I felt dreadful, crying & miserable for no good reason (I have never suffered from depression) also quite confused, spoke to GP & I came off them, I was back to normal within a few days

 

This is from the contraindications,

"Suicidal ideation and behaviour have been reported in patients treated with anti-epileptic agents in several indications. A meta-analysis of randomised placebo-controlled trials of AEDs has shown a small increased risk of suicidal ideation and behaviour. The mechanism of this risk is not known and the available data do not exclude the possibility of an increased risk for topiramate"

Edited June 1, 2016 by Jamboat

[Wanderer Vagabond]

I find it unlikely that someone with no depression problems at all would go out and kill themselves due to medication.

 

Perhaps the Acne was a visible sign of someone suffering from high levels of stress without being able to express it.

 

Or perhaps there are groups of people who are genetically predisposed to suicide. Scarily there have been studies on that in the US All sorts of factors but I don't think if you gave the acne drug to 100 people randomly it would cause a spike in the statistics. (you would have to try people without Acne to widen the group otherwise it is too self selecting)

 

 

 

Imo

 

 

I think that your assumption was the line of defence that the drug company themselves took. When you look at it realistically though there is no way of proving otherwise since the test you suggested would be ethically unacceptable. So you give the drug to a random sample of people for a trial and see how many have committed suicide at the end of the trial (comparing it to the suicide rate in the UK of about 270 per million population per annum), not going to work is it ? It is rather telling that the drug has been withdrawn.

 

The woman I had to deal with had suffered acne from her early teens and she was in her mid 20's when she stepped in front of the train so I don't feel that the acne or any underlying depression was to blame. You'd even expect any underlying body shame due to the acne to have lifted (although true clininical depression doesn't need to be triggered by anything, contrary to popular belief) since the drug did improve the condition massively (when peeling her off the train I didn't even realise that she suffered from acne).

 

It is widely accepted that people have died as a result of their activities whilst under the influence of LSD (none as a result of drug poisoning) so I don't find it too difficult to accept that a drug can change your mind set.

[Graham Davis]

I had been diagnosed with depression years ago. Not really severe but seems to be controlled by medication. I wish I wasn't depressed. Good days and not so good days.

 

Years ago, I had to visit my GP as I was having really bad thoughts and I believed, sometimes still do, that I had done my bit for this life, brought up three smashing sons, all left home and have their own families now, I was thinking of giving up work soon and just felt empty. I was in a dark place. I didn't realise until my brain sorted itself out. To me, it's not a taboo subject. Difficult to understand if you're not involved or effected by this illness.

 

Not the solution, but it has helped, I now live on a boat.

 

Martyn

 

Been there, worn the t-shirt, all because of the crap way I was being dealt with by an uncaring employer.

It isn't nice.

The light came back on when they finally dismissed me.

 

Have a green thing.

[bag 'o' bones]

 

Just for clarity, The Samaritans is not a christian organisation.

 

Richard

The original Samaritans are a minority group living in Israel though to have descended from the ancient Jews at the time of the exile from Babylon.

Nothing to do with the charity though.

[RLWP]

The original Samaritans are a minority group living in Israel though to have descended from the ancient Jews at the time of the exile from Babylon.

Nothing to do with the charity though.

 

I'm sure I heard a story about one of them somewhere

 

Richard

[FadeToScarlet]

 

I'm sure I heard a story about one of them somewhere

 

Richard

Was it a good one?