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suicide attempts

Heroes

Gardener in India spends his days tending plants and saving people from suicide attempts

He's saved over 50 people who have jumped in the river.

Photo credit: Canva

Gardener in India has pulled 50 people from river, thwarting suicide attempts

Editor's Note: This story discusses suicide. If you are having thoughts about taking your own life, or know of anyone who is in need of help, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a United States-based suicide prevention network of over 200+ crisis centers that provides 24/7 service via a toll-free hotline with the number 9-8-8. It is available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.

People struggling with mental health is universal. There's no shortage of mental health conditions or life circumstances that cause people to quickly spiral into depression when things don't look up for long periods of time. In those moments of struggle, it can be helpful to have someone around that you can talk to but not everyone has access to that. And not everyone who has a solid support system reaches out when things take a dark turn.

For some, they see suicide as a way out of the suffering they may be experiencing but in many cases the suffering will pass if the person holds on a little longer.Cuttack, India is the home of Mahanadi barrage, a concrete fixture that is designed to divert water in rivers and other bodies of water. Some barrages also double as a bridge allowing cars and pedestrians to cross but in Cuttack, people were using the barrage for another reason–jumping into the river.

The Mahanadi river has an extremely strong current making it difficult to swim in, so unless you're in a boat it's unusual to see people in the dangerous body of water. That's where Babuli Behera comes in. He's a 55-year-old garden supervisor for the Cuttack Municipal Corporation and has thwarted over 50 suicide attempts from people leaping from the top of the barrage.

Behera's life-saving mission didn't just start recently, the first time he saved a woman who stepped off of the water diverting apparatus was when he was just 15. The then teen boy had newly dropped out of high school to help his parents' fishing business when the woman jumping from the barrage caught his eye causing him to instinctively jump in the raging river after her. Thanks to his quick action and strong swimming skills, he was able to get the woman safely ashore.

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Behera tells The New Indian Times that his parents ensured that he knew how to swim against the river's strong currents before he began fishing with them.

“There was no concrete barrage over Mahanadi then. There was a wooden barrage a few metres above the present barrage. I had mastered the trick of taking the perfect dive into Mahanadi from the wooden barrage,” he tells the outlet.

a man in a yellow turban is picking flowers Photo by Shruti Singh on Unsplash

Thanks to his experience, though he's no longer a fisherman he can't help but keep an eye on the top of the barrage when he's tending to the garden. This has allowed him to save many people, including teenagers. Behera's not alone in his efforts though, he works alongside his wife to make sure the people he rescues gets to the hospital and the couple stays with them until the person's family comes.

While it may seem like Behera is a real life super hero, he has been hurt while trying to rescue someone from the dangerous river. In July, the man broke his leg while saving an elderly woman who jumped in the river. Though he broke his leg, he was still able to rescue the woman and get her to safety.

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Behera tells The New Indian Times, “When we ask them why they want to end their lives, the students would blame it on exam failure. The women mostly jumped into the river due to failed affairs, marriages or domestic violence.”

Back in 2018, Behera's son, Chandan also earned his superhero cape after a bus careened off of the bridge into the river. The boy jumped into the water and helped pull out several passengers, so saving lives is sort of the family business. Behera is well respected in Cuttack as many people have seen him unselfishly put himself at risk to save the life of someone attempting suicide. He was also recognized by the Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida for his heroic acts.

Winner Celebrate GIF by AwkwafinaGiphy

The man and his wife don't run any sort of specialized organization, he's simply a gardener with a keen eye for people in distress and a childhood survival swim skill. Hopefully the people Behera saved got the help they needed long after they were pulled from the river and are living happy and healthy lives.

From Your Site Articles

mental health

Heroes

'I put my arms around him': Man risks his life saving a stranger during suicide attempt on bridge

"I told him whatever it was, whatever was going on in his life, it was going to be OK."

via Michael Stokes / Flickr

Rochester, New York.

Suicide is an emotionally fraught and complex topic to discuss. But one overlooked part of the issue that provides some hope is that even though suicidal crises are predominantly caused by chronic issues, they are usually short-lived.

An article in the journal Crisis, cited in a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health news piece, states that the acute period of heightened risk for suicidal behavior is often only hours or minutes long. Around 87% of people deliberated for less than a day. Another article in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that of people taken to the hospital after a suicide attempt, 48% considered the idea for fewer than 10 minutes.

Another study found that nine out of 10 people who attempt suicide do not go on to die in a subsequent attempt.

The research shows that if we can stop someone in an attempt or prevent it from happening in the first place, there is a very good chance that they will never die by suicide. That's one reason that a story out of Rochester, New York, reported by WHEC News is so powerful.

David DelleFave was driving over the East Henrietta Road bridge over Interstate 390 in Rochester on his work break when he saw a man climb over the railing and step out onto a small ledge. He called out to the man from his car.

"He didn’t say much. He sat there. He said he was having some issues," DelleFave told WHEC. "So I told him whatever it was, whatever was going on in his life, it was going to be OK."

The man was crying and learned over the ledge even further, so DelleFave hopped out of his car.

"I looked down over the edge and realized none of these vehicles are not going to stop in time if it does happen. I reached up behind him and I just embraced him. I put my arms around him. I hugged him from behind and I just held him," he said. "And I told him whatever it is, please come with me. Whatever is going on today, whatever it is, we’ll fix it just please come with me."

He held the man who was shaking and as he began to learn forward, DelleFave feared they both may fall off the bridge. After a perilous half minute or so, the suicidal man turned to DelleFave and said, “OK.”

When both men returned to safety they realized that the bridge was jammed with people watching the incident.

"I seen the lady here crying hysterically. I seen the other lady on the phone. I seen a gentleman down here leaning out of his truck cheering me on," he said. "That’s when I realized that—I probably just saved someone’s life."

\u201cDavid DelleFave didn't take his break from work yesterday thinking he would face a life and death situation. But that's what happened. "This is the edge right here," he said, walking along the rail of the East Henrietta Road bridge over I-390. https://t.co/koFZhId1bR\u201d
— news10nbc (@news10nbc) 1660091409

He then bought the man some food at Taco Bell where a sheriff’s deputy arrived and took the man to the hospital. It was then that the suicidal man realized he had a new purpose in life.

"When he was talking to the sheriffs he said that he realized that he's here and how many lives he can help and he said, 'That's what it's all about,'" DelleFave told WHEC.

Given the fact that such a large number of people who survive a suicide attempt are unlikely to die by suicide in the future, DelleFave’s actions will be felt for decades. He put his life on the line to save that of a stranger and that is the very definition of the word hero.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide Crisis & Lifeline at 988 immediately. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress as well as prevention and crisis resources for healthcare professionals.

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Family

The conversation about suicides in the U.S. needs to include guns. Here's why.

Not all suicides are completed with a gun — but in the U.S., most are.

Each time a high-profile celebrity dies by suicide, we seem to start a fresh conversation about suicide statistics in America.

In half of U.S. states, suicide rates have climbed 30% or more in the past two decades. Only Nevada saw a decline during that time — a mere 1%, which still puts the state higher than the national average.

Questions of why and what we can do about suicide dominate, leading to discussions revolving around mental health stigma and access to mental health care. And, indeed, those are vital pieces of the puzzle.

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But there's another piece we don't talk about enough. If we want to reduce suicide statistics, we have to include the most common and lethal means of suicide in the U.S.: self-inflicted gunshot.

Research shows that when it comes to suicide, method matters. And firearm is by far the most deadly.

In some ways, focusing on a handful of celebrity suicides distracts from the research on U.S. suicide rates overall.

While we can't always know why Americans die by suicide, we do know how: Suicide by firearm kills more people than all other suicide methods combined. And while women are three times more likely to attempt suicide than men, men are four times as likely to die by suicide as women.

Why the discrepancy? All signs point to the fact that men tend to choose more violent and lethal methods of suicide.

And guns are by far the most lethal means. Of non-firearm suicide attempts, about 90% are unsuccessful, while about 90% of firearm suicides are successful. That makes access to guns a prime factor in suicide risk.

Many suicides are actually impulsive acts. That matters too.

One thing that gets missed in our discourse on suicide is that while some suicide attempts are a culmination of years of internal struggle with mental illness, many — and perhaps most — are not.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, one-third to four-fifths of people who attempt suicide are reacting to a current major stressor, not taking a long-premeditated action.

But suicide by firearm doesn't afford people a chance to change their mind or get a second chance. Most people who attempt suicide don't really want to end their lives; they want to end their pain. A gun allows a suicidal person to take split-second action, whereas most other means allow a person to stop mid-attempt or for another person to intervene.

While we're addressing how to prevent suicidal ideation, we need to consider easy access to the most lethal means of suicide.

Research shows that having access to a gun drastically increases the likelihood of a successful suicide attempt.

According to a Harvard University analysis, states with the highest rates of gun ownership had rates of gun suicide 3.7 times higher for men and 7.9 times higher for women than those with lowest gun ownership. Other methods of suicide were about equal.

For all demographics, the easier guns are to access, the higher the risk of completed suicide.

— (@)

And it's not because gun owners are more suicidal. Catherine Barber, director of the suicide prevention effort Means Matter, said:

"When we compared people in gun-owning households to people not in gun-owning households, there was no difference in terms of rates of mental illness or in terms of the proportion saying that they had seriously considered suicide. Actually, among gun owners, a smaller proportion say that they had attempted suicide. So it's not that gun owners are more suicidal. It's that they're more likely to die in the event that they become suicidal, because they are using a gun."

In light of the facts, we clearly need to do more to curb access to guns for people at risk for suicide.

If we're serious about suicide prevention in the U.S., we have to include gun control in the conversation.

And conversely, if we're serious about reducing our gun death rate, we need to include suicide in our discussions. In the U.S., the statistics are strongly linked, a fact we shouldn't overlook.

Family

This intimate photo series is helping change the way we talk about suicide.

In 2010, Dese'Rae L. Stage set out to create a photo series of suicide attempt survivors.

At that time, Stage says she lost her first friend to suicide and had attempted to end her own life. Suicide was now part of her everyday existence, but talking about it was not.

"There was a lack of visibility for people like me, and an inability to find other attempt survivors," Stage said. "Why are we invisible?"

Dese'Rae L. Stage, creator of Live Through This. All photos by Dese'Rae L. Stage, used with permission.

She began reaching out to celebrities and posting ads on Craigslist. Slowly, more and more suicide attempt survivors began to respond, and the portraiture and oral history project grew organically.

Six years later, Stage has interviewed more than 170 people in 30 U.S. cities for the Live Through This project, with each participant sharing their experience of life on the other side of a suicide attempt.

"The goal of the project was to show people we're not so easily erased," Stage said.

By telling the stories of real attempt survivors, Live Through This shows suicide does not discriminate. They are people who look just like you.

David Pajo: "I think if you lost someone, don't make it too taboo to discuss. It sucks and it's really hard to do to put it out there, but sometimes you have to do the thing that's hardest. Be courageous. Talk about it with people that it affects. It'll be better for you, it'll be better for the other person."

Megan Rotari: "I think [a suicide survivor] can look like anything. Literally any race, religion, ethnicity, anything. Any age."

Grace Kim: "I realize I wasted most of my life being miserable and now I just want to live the rest of it out taking advantage of it, ‘cause it really is a gift. Being here... it’s, like, a one in a forty million chance that you were born."

Zack Fraser: "If I could give one gift to people, it would be the ability to understand, on a gut level, that people’s brains are not going to work like your brain. People are going to have different experiences."

We need to change the way we talk about suicide.

"We've put death in a hospital ... it’s not something we see," Stage said. People don't want to talk about death, but for suicide attempt survivors, it's the most valuable thing we can do.

For every one person who dies by suicide, 147 people are affected, according to recent research-based estimates by Julie Cerel, cited by the American Association of Suicidology.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: "And, immediately, if I say "mental illness," my whole being becomes mental illness. I think it's such a socially coded word that if I say that one thing, they see me as just that one thing. I chose 'psychiatric disability' because a disability is something one has, but I also believe it's a political term."

"One of the biggest things we‘re taught as young people is to put yourself in someone else's shoes," Stage explained. "It's the need to ask yourself: What would it take to hurt so much that you would want to take your own life? That’s often beyond where people want to go as a thought experimentation ... but it’s needed."

There's still much work to be done as we learn the best language to use when talking about suicide, but projects like Live Through This are helping to make that shift to open, supportive conversation.

Talking about suicide will humanize those who attempt it. There's incredible value in the simple skills of listening and asking direct questions. "Learning to put your fear aside, hold face, ask what people need, and help them get it without judgement," Stage says, is vital.

Live Through This rallies empathy for attempt survivors, but the project's power is in creating visibility for an entire community struggling with depression, self harm, or suicidal thoughts. By normalizing how we talk about suicide, we'll be able to help people before they attempt it.

Connect with them, ask questions, listen, show them they're not alone. It could save a life.

Watch the Upworthy Original video below for more on Live Through This, and to hear from Joey Olszewski, a suicide attempt survivor featured in the project:

If you or someone you know is hurting, afraid, or struggling with suicidal thoughts, please talk to someone. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. If you don't like the phone, visit Lifeline Crisis Chat or Crisis Text Line.