Area lawmakers, activists call for suicide prevention fencing on 5 Hudson Valley bridges

Area lawmakers and suicide prevention activists are calling for the New York State Bridge Authority to install suicide prevention fencing on five local bridges, including the Bear Mountain Bridge.

State Sen. Pete Harckham (D-Peekskill) and State Sen. James Skoufis (D-Cornwall) hosted local lawmakers in Peekskill Thursday and urged the Bridge Authority to vote to build the safety guardrails, also known as "climb deterrent fencing" in its upcoming Sept. 21 vote for capital project spending. They were joined by suicide prevention advocates from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Westchester branch of the National Alliance for Mental Illness.

In 2021, Harckham and Skoufis introduced legislation with State Assemblyperson Aileen Gunther (D-Middletown) to require the Bridge Authority to install the fencing on all five Hudson Valley Bridges it oversees; Bear Mountain, Newburgh-Beacon, Mid-Hudson, Kingston-Rhinecliff and Rip Van Winkle. The bill did not pass and the bridges remain without safety guardrails today.

Harckham said that since he helped introduce the bill in 2021, 11 people have died from suicide at the five bridges plus the Walkway on the Hudson in Poughkeepsie.

"That's 11 missed birthdays, 11 missed family reunions, 11 missed tender moments with loved ones," Harckham said.

One of the recent suicide victims in the last two years was Westchester County Legislator Erika Pierce's uncle. Harckham said he jumped from the Bear Mountain Bridge in 2021 and he was inspired to introduce the bill on Pierce's behalf.

"If a suicide can be prevented, in this case by a suicide deterrent barrier, then 90% of those individuals will never try suicide again," Pierce said. "Which means, that if we had had this deterrent fencing on the five bridges managed by the Bridge Authority, those 11 people, and my uncle, and the dozens of people who came to these bridges before them would overwhelmingly still be with us, living their lives."

Pierce said that research also shows suicide deterrent barriers help overall suicide rates in areas decrease significantly in communities where they're located.

Maria Idoni, the Hudson Valley/Westchester director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, read a statement from a colleague who recently saved a 19-year-old boy from drowning after he jumped from the Bear Mountain Bridge.

"He kept returning to the refrain, 'I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I think I jumped," Idoni's colleague said. "That day for the boy, for me and for all the first responders could have gone very differently had there been a fence in place."

Skoufis said that the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the driving issues in the 11 Hudson Valley bridge suicides. “During and following the pandemic, we’ve had an epidemic of suicide and mental unwellness,” Skoufis said. “Isolation had an incredible mental and emotional toll. And, sadly, that bears out in the suicide statistics we’ve seen in recent years. Bridge fencing is important because it’s about buying time - trying to get individuals past that suicidal impulse that is overwhelming them.”

Just last week, the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge was lit up in blue and purple to honor National Suicide Prevention Month. The New York State Thruway Authority installed their own suicide prevention fencing and emergency phones during the reconstruction of the bridge in 2017 after decades of suicide deaths.

Harckham said that while the bill did not pass, the Bridge Authority has taken some initiative to look into including safety measures on their bridges. According to Harckham, the Bridge Authority did an engineering study and determined that suicide prevention fencing on all five bridges would range from $10 million to $60 million, depending on each bridge's infrastructure.

The Bridge Authority said that while it hasn't yet installed prevention fencing, it is still implementing alternative suicide prevention measures.

“The New York State Bridge Authority has long been committed to the issue of mental health awareness, starting with the first suicide prevention phones installed on the Mid-Hudson Bridge in 1984, the first bridge in the nation to do this," it said in a statement. "Since then, NYSBA has expanded this helpline phone system to all bridges, provided on-going comprehensive training to our security staff, and installed state-of-the-art, 24/7 security monitoring systems at our bridges."

The Bridge Authority said it is also hosting a summit later in September "focused on improving mental health outcomes and addressing mental health emergencies in public spaces, including our bridges."

Harckham said that if the Bridge Authority does not vote for safety fencing, he and Sen. Skoufis will introduce another bill to the State Senate. They expect more support behind the bill this time around.

"Our first responsibility in government is the health and safety of our residents," Harckham said.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Suicide prevention fencing on Hudson Valley bridges called for