Letters to the EditorFull Access
Net for Bridges
Published Online:15 Dec 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.41.24.0026b
In response to the controversy over whether to install suicide barriers on bridges (Psychiatric News, July 7), how about placing a netting or wire caging on the same plane as the bridge outside the railings parallel to the water? No one driving on the bridge would see it, no one would see it from shore, and probably no one would see it from a boat passing under the bridge.
My husband, an engineer and physician, says this idea would work.
Since jumping suicides are driven by impulse, I doubt that individuals landing in the net would get up and jump again. Of course, motion sensors would be needed to alert the police or bridge authority that someone was in the net and had to be rescued.
