A Quebec coroner says Montreal’s Champlain Bridge needs anti-suicide barrier
A suicide-prevention barrier should be installed on Montreal’s Samuel De Champlain Bridge after a 38-year-old man jumped from the structure to his death last May, a Quebec coroner has recommended.
A suicide-prevention barrier should be installed on Montreal’s Samuel De Champlain Bridge after a 38-year-old man jumped from the structure to his death last May, a Quebec coroner has recommended.
The existing barrier along the bridge’s pedestrian walkway should no longer be climbed, said Dr. Jean E. Brochu in his report published on January 5th.
Any able-bodied person could easily scale the barrier and jump off the structure, the report said. Brochu suggested as a model the anti-suicide fence on the city’s Jacques Cartier Bridge, erected in 2004 after several people killed themselves jumping off the span.
“Comparing this structure to the one installed on the Jacques Cartier Bridge a few years ago… it is clear that this is more difficult, if not impossible, to climb,” the coroner wrote.
Erik Bouton was seen by security forces on May 22 standing “upright and motionless” on the bridge’s path before the man jumped onto a highway bordering the Saint Lawrence River, the coroner said.
Robert Olson, a research librarian at the Center for Suicide Prevention, said media attention has made some bridges become “suicide hotspots” and that installing barriers helps prevent deaths.
“If (suicides) happen more often (on a bridge) than elsewhere in a given city, the idea comes up that maybe put up barriers. It’s recommended practice,” Olson said in an interview on Friday.
However, he said suicide fences are not being systematically installed on new bridges for cost or aesthetic reasons.
The Champlain Bridge, completed in 2019 as part of a public-private partnership with the Canadian government, replaced a 1962 bridge of the same name.
Martin Chamberland, a spokesman for Signature on the Saint Lawrence Group, a private company that manages the Samuel De Champlain Bridge, said in an email Friday that a “working committee” was formed to review the coroner’s recommendations to investigate.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on January 27, 2023.
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This story was produced with financial support from Meta and the Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Marisela Amador, The Canadian Press
