h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I really thought today was going to be a nice day. I've been having a relatively quiet week thus far, my boss has been in a chipper mood, the weather's been gorgeous, and K and I are supposed to be meeting a fellow hootooer who's in town this week for dinner this evening.

But, of course, something had to happen to put a damper on all the niceness. I work in a 31-story high-rise right on the eastern side of the Chicago River (across from Riverside Drive). There's a ledge out there, just above ground level, bordering the river. It's apparently a popular spot for jumpers, and this morning, during the morning trek to work, some idiot jumped.

I'd like to feel sorry for the guy, but it's the commuters who were forced to witness the spectacle who're the worst off. Except maybe the person he was speaking to on his cell phone when he jumped.

Oh cripes. I've just seen this posting after I called you. That's truly awful. I don't know what to say.

He jumped into the water, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. According to the local news reoprts, he was brought to the hspital in critical condition, so who knows. He was under the water for 20 or 30 minutes, though.

I was a little creeped out this morning but I'm feeling all right now.

Here's the news:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/bridge20.html

Oh dear. Not an idiot. Just some poor soul whose brain chemicals were making him feel bad. It could happen to any of us. If only he'd got help in time!

Perhaps. He was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time and may have just done it in the heat of a moment or something. There's been a lot of speculation on the radio news shows today.

The idiotic part would be jumping off a bridge in the middle of the business district in the peak of rush hour. Odds are too good you'll be rescued, so it's really not worth all that effort.

And quite a few of the witnesses seemed fairly traumatized by what they'd seen. I tend to get really upset with people who off themselves in front of a crowd of people. It's pretty cruel.

My sympathy to the onlookers, the jumper, and you PCandy.

Hope the rest of your day was pleasant and uneventful.

But...it's not as if anyone in that situation is capable of rationality. Even if they intend to cause distress...that's still not rational. Or if it's a half-hearted 'cry for help', etc. etc. It must be a terrible thing for the family of a suicide, the mixture of loss, guilt and anger. When I've got that far in my irrationality, my plotting has tended to focus on finding a method that would cause as little distress to others as possible. One of the things that stopped me was the realisation that discovering a body would be the least of their pain.

That said - sympathy of course also to the witnesses. Who can forget, for example, the WTC jumpers .

Yeah. Given a choice between burning to death or jumping, I'd have to flip a coin.

Sorry for being so morbid yesterday; the incident wasn't traumatic for me per se, but it was pretty upsetting. I get really pissed off with people who scare me like that.

That said, the rest of the day *was* pleasant and relatively uneventful. And, for a highlight, K and I met another hootooer for dinner last night (hope it was as nice a time as it as for us).

>>Yeah. Given a choice between burning to death or jumping, I'd have to flip a coin.

The really appaling thing is...you wouldn't. Fire is painful. The body would kick in and seek short-term relief.

Just continuing the morbitity a little...in one of Kerouac's books, he talks about taking jobs on transatlantic freighters. Seamen used to keep a razor blade in their top pocket, in case their ship sank. Eek!

Incidentally...the office I used to work in was a pretty common spot for jumpers. It overlooked a bridge - not a very high bridge - over the River Clyde. Occasionally we'd see a police boat scurrying back and forth, but I think only once did anyone see somebody actually jump.

Mind you...there was the time we spotted someone [indulging in an act of solo pleasure that I can't think of a hootoo-friendly euphemism for].

The Chicago River has seen its fair share of jumpers, too, not to mention folks who fall in (and presumably some who are pushed). The security guard in our building apparently had to talk someone down off the railing of that bridge right outside last year, or maybe it was the year before. I wasn't working there when it happened.

The only person I've ever seen publicly waxing his surfboard, so to speak, was driving in his car and using the other hand to, erm, shift gears. I remember him being a terribly unattractive man with what appeared to be an unusually small organ.

I remember you telling me that story!

My office used to be in the city's red light zone. If you were working late, the security guards would sometimes show you the CCTV pictures of women leading men down alleyways...etc.

There's a high bridge near me that's a popular spot for jumpers: we get one or two a year, usually at night. The numbers have dropped (so to speak) since a free phone was placed at each end, with direct lines to the Samaritans.

A few weeks ago, several distressed people called the police about a guy who was hanging from a rope attached to the underside of the bridge. He turned out to be a photographer in a harness, trying for an unusual shot of the bridge.

That would probably have freaked me out, too. What was he thinking! Don't people usually need to get the okay from some sort of authorities to do stuff like that?

No one has, to my knowledge, jumped from the bridge over the river (same river, further north) near my home. At least not since I've lived there. The life preservers (they keep a life preserver in a little glass case on every bridge in the city, Just In Case) are stolen fairly regularly, though.

The thing is...if you jump off, say, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Humber Bridge, or the Severn Bridge - a la Richie Edwards - it's going to be pretty quick. Anyone jumping off a Clyde bridge would have to be really desperate. (Except the Erskine bridge, upstream. That's pretty high). But then...one of the most common suicide methods is paracetamol overdose, which is also one of the most ineffective, long drawn-out and painful.

The point I keep trying to make is that there's no logic involved in suicide. It's a horrible, desperate, tragic illness.

Certainly is.

Suicide is the ultimate expression of hopelessness - to the suicidal the logical step *is* death.

Violent bullies are also illogical, horrible, desperate, and tragic. Public suicides are also cruel--though it might seem to the dying person that they are giving people what they want.