Former Sunrise reporter Bianca Stone says son wanted to die by suicide

Former Sunrise reporter Bianca Stone says she spent years putting on a professional face for the camera, but between crosses she was talking her son down from a ledge to save his life.

Media personality Bianca Stone and her son Rainsford Stone. Pics: Adam Head

Former Sunrise reporter Bianca Stone says she spent years putting on her most professional face for the camera but between crosses she was talking her son down from a ledge to save his life.

The TV and radio personality, who resigned from Channel 7 in February after 18 years with the network, has revealed her private battle to keep her son Rainsford alive after he attempted suicide at the age of 18.

Stone said she suffered sleepless nights and was plagued by the constant concern she would find him too late after discovering him unconscious, just hours before her 2am wake-up call to appear on TV in 2018.

Media personality Bianca Stone and her son Rainsford Stone talk candidly about mental health. Pics: Adam Head

“I had gone to bed. It was an unremarkable night. There’d been no trigger,” Stone said.

“My phone kept buzzing next to my bed … it was on silent … I finally picked it up and it was one of his friends, they said ‘go and check on Rainsford’ … and I said ‘what do you mean? He is 10 steps away. He is in his room. He is 10 steps away’.

The mother of three was confronted by the unimaginable when she opened her son’s bedroom door.

“I tried to wake him up and get him conscious and he stirred … I cleaned him up like you would a baby,” she said.

Shortly after, Stone called an ambulance. In hospital, Rainsford was flanked by security.

“I knew that if he left the house that day he would be dead,” she said.

“People were screaming and kicking – by then (Rainsford) had calmed down but he was still in desperate need of mental health help … I didn’t know which way to turn.

“We spent hours in that padded room just sitting on a mattress.”

Bianca Stone with children, Rainsford Stone, Bronte Mooney, and Matilda Mooney. Picture: Jerad Williams

Rainsford was eventually admitted to Robina Hospital’s mental health ward.

“I would not wish my worst enemy to go to that place – it is horrendous,” she said.

“I sat outside (the hospital) crying because I had done this to him, I had put him in hospital, I had put him in a mental health ward and I couldn’t get him out.”

From then on, Stone “checked on him every single night, multiple times a night” while each day before work, she would ask him if he was thinking of suiciding.

“(We would) talk about it really openly and then put strategies in place to stop that from happening,” she said.

Bianca Stone with her husband Mark Mooney and their children Matilda Mooney, then aged 4, and Bronte Mooney, then aged 6.

Rainsford, now 23, said his mental health issues “lingered” in his teenage years but that everything started to spiral shortly after he sustained an ankle injury while training with the Gold Coast Suns academy.

“My usual escape of exercise and going out and being physical was sort of gone,” he said.

“Then once I turned 18 it started to intensify … more partying, more alcohol, more drugs.”

Stone said her son was “closet drinking” shots of vodka in his room after she would go to bed at 8pm.

Rainsford said he was thankful to be one of the people that got a “wake-up call”.

“I would take a step back from partying, I would take a step back from drinking - I would try and straighten myself out but you get on a good run for a while and then find yourself falling back into the same traps, back into the same cycles of depression.”

Stone said Rainsford tried to “battle his way through”.

“I felt really alone as a parent, not being able to help him,” she said.

Bianca Stone resigned from Channel 7 in February.

“I would be in the middle of work and he would be having a full blown anxiety attack on the highway and I would have to pretty much calm him down from the ledge.”

She said Rainsford’s mental health had significantly improved in the last year and that boxing offered him a “lifeline”.

Stone said breakfast TV was “a lot of pressure for a long time” but stressed she had “great bosses”, who had always been supportive of her situation with her son during her time on air.

Her daughters Bronte, 8, and Matilda, 10, were also front of mind when she resigned from the show.

“They need some time … knowing how quickly Rain grew up,” she said. “I knew that I needed to spend time with them in their formative years.”

Rainsford said his message for others battling mental health issues was: “You can bounce back, you can find that absolute fire that makes you want to be here and spend every waking minute with your friends and family.”

“I want to make my mum proud,” he said.