EDITORIAL

Support bridge protection bills to save lives

Posted 4/6/22

There is no easy or polite way to bring up the topic of suicide, but it must be spoken about if we are to save lives that are possible to be saved.

For those who have experienced losing a loved …

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EDITORIAL

Support bridge protection bills to save lives

Posted

There is no easy or polite way to bring up the topic of suicide, but it must be spoken about if we are to save lives that are possible to be saved.

For those who have experienced losing a loved one through a purposeful act of self-harm, it is a form of grief beyond compare, and one that will continue to haunt dreams and waking moments throughout the remainder of their own lives.

It is no secret that mental health issues plague our state and our nation. Throughout the past couple decades, issues related to anxiety, depression, addiction and other mental health maladies have thankfully transitioned from something not often spoken about into something we grapple with together as a society. Slowly, these complex and heart-rending issues have become a load we all feel a responsibility to carry, and should carry.

As with most widespread health issues, improving our current situation comes down to tangible means, such as the allocation of money, availability of volunteers, accessibility of services, and assembling the political will to put those issues to the front of any legislative agenda.

Thankfully, in Rhode Island, we are on the horizon of a new age of awareness and action regarding one particularly dramatic and devastating means of ending a life prematurely — securing our bridges from people who might attempt to use them as a method of suicide.

The current physical state of our bridges are chronically lacking in means to prevent these avoidable deaths, as evidenced by the hundreds of people who have been lost over their railings and through the tireless advocacy work of people who have seen their lives altered through the shockwave effect that results from witnessing or dealing with the aftermath of a bridge-based suicide.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, and it should not remain this way. There are bills in both the Senate and the House, the latter introduced by our own Joseph Solomon Jr., that seek to utilize ARPA funding to help install proper barriers on the state’s three large-span bridges that will, undoubtedly, save lives. In accordance with dedicated members of social service groups, these measures would have a profound impact in the state towards preventing unnecessary, tragic deaths, and getting people the help they need.

The debate over how these barriers should be implemented, and how much it costs, cannot supersede the importance of committing to the measure in the first place. People are utilizing these bridges as a means to end their lives now, and it is preventable, and the political will is there to do something about it.

We cannot put a price on this type of work, as we are judged as a society by how we treat our most vulnerable. There are few situations more vulnerable than a person standing on the edge of a bridge, hundreds of feet in the air, contemplating taking a step that they cannot take back.

We urge all with the ability to do so to reach out to your local representatives and support Senate Bill No. 2338 and its companion in the House of Representatives. We must stand together as a state to protect those of us who need protected, and then support them in their journey towards a better tomorrow — and show them why that tomorrow is worth living for.

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