Brisbane’s Story Bridge: a tale of tragedy for far too long

Brisbane’s great landmark, the Story Bridge, has long been a magnet for suicidal people. Has enough been done to stop them?

TWAM 5 Sep 2015

It was raining on the morning that Troy Aggett decided to end his life.

Shirtless and ­shoeless, the 39-year-old drove from Logan, 25km south of Brisbane, to the Story Bridge, the city’s key visual icon linking the suburbs of Fortitude Valley and Kangaroo Point. He obeyed the speed limit and all traffic signals on the way there. “There was no urgency to what I was doing,” he says. “There was no rush.” He hadn’t slept the night before. It was March 22, 2012, a Thursday, when he parked near the bridge at around 6.30am and hastily wrote an apology note to a long-lost friend: “Sorry I couldn’t catch up.” Helpfully, he placed his driver’s licence inside the note, so that police could identify him.

While the rain fell steadily, Aggett strolled up to the 1072m-long bridge, which is traversed by 30 million vehicles annually. Though scared of heights, he paused every now and then to look over the edge. When he found the highest point over a pathway in Captain Burke Park below, he stopped and checked out the drop: 30m onto a hard surface. He didn’t want to land in the ­Brisbane River, as people have been known to survive the watery impact. All that stood between his troubled life and his certain death that morning was a 138cm-high fence.

Aggett had reached this point of despair after 19 months of sick leave from his job as an ­Australian Federal Police officer, where he had turned whistleblower against what he perceived to be a poisonous and corrupt culture, triggering a drawn-out court action which he ultimately won. He was near rock bottom, having lost everything he cared about. “It was just a private moment; I wasn’t trying to cause a scene, I wasn’t trying to get people involved,” he says. What he didn’t count on was that a passerby – an off-duty member of the Royal Australian Air Force – was quick enough to grab his arm as he swung over the barrier, locked elbows so that Aggett couldn’t drop, and began a conversation. Soon, two police officers were on the scene to hear his final wish: “Just bury me when I’m done. A pauper’s funeral; I don’t care. Just scrape me up nicely, and put me in a box. That’s enough.”

This story has a happy ending. After three hours of negotiation – most of which took place while Aggett stood holding on to the outside of the railing with three fingers of his right hand, near-naked and shivering – he gave permission to be strapped into a bright red firefighter’s ­harness and brought back over the railing. Within moments he was covered with a fluorescent yellow raincoat to shield him from the cold. Spent from the exertion of holding himself in a precarious position all that time, he dropped to the bitumen. A policeman leaned down and pressed his head against Aggett’s, while nearby officers comforted him with pats on the back. A female officer lent over the barrier and gave the thumbs-up signal to paramedics who had gathered beneath a tree in the park below to shelter from the steady rainfall, stretcher at the ready. A fire engine with its cherry picker ladder extension that had been waiting out of sight, in the shadow of the Story Bridge, was no longer needed. Raincoat-clad police officers waiting nearby were at last able to breathe a sigh of relief.

On that morning, some two dozen emergency services staff were focused solely on bringing Aggett back from the brink. His life was all that mattered. What’s remarkable about the scene, however, is that its final minutes were captured by a member of the public who happened to be filming from a high-rise apartment across the Brisbane River, on the outskirts of the CBD. A zoom lens framed the scene in extraordinary detail as the amateur director shakily panned to ensure that every emotion was writ in high definition. The care and compassion on display in the four-minute video is humbling. It was uploaded to YouTube on the day of the incident, tagged: “Australian trying to commit suicide”.

Aggett found the footage around two years later. He has watched the video of this low moment in his life several times, enthralled and a little embarrassed. Today he’s 43, healthy, married, running his own flooring business, and able to speak frankly about that day on the bridge. “I keep an eye out for people who do jump: where they jumped, how many jumped, whether it was successful or not,” he says between sips of a cool drink at a Brisbane cafe, his wife by his side. “It’s just curiosity, I think. It’s hard to explain, but it feels like I’ve got a connection to these people now. I know what they’re going through, inside.”

Since it was opened to the public in 1940, suicidal behaviour at the steel cantilever Story Bridge has become so commonplace that several studies have been undertaken. The earliest published study, written by Queensland Department of Health psychiatrist Christopher Cantor in conjunction with psychologist Michael Hill, was published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry in 1990. Titled Suicide From River Bridges, it showed that, in the 15 years prior to publication, 42 people had died at the Story Bridge. About 80 per cent of jumpers were male, and the average age was 35.

Another report published in the same journal in 2014 says that between 1990 and 2012, 88 suicides were recorded at that location; on average, four per year. Of that number, 27 occurred between 1997 and 2005, according to figures shown in a private Brisbane City Council (BCC) presentation in April 2011 and seen by this magazine. On average, one every 15 weeks.

These numbers are known by senior members of ­the council, including the Lord Mayor. They are known by the emergency services departments, including police and paramedics, whose job it is to deal with the horrific aftermath of jumping ­suicides from a height of 30m. They are known, in general terms, by the scores of residents who live in the dozens of apartment buildings at neighbouring Kangaroo Point. These bystanders have become accustomed to the sad, quietening sound of sirens and the sight of flashing lights heading beneath the bridge.

Approval for suicide barriers on the bridge was granted in March 2010 by the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection but what followed was four years of inaction during which people continued to throw themselves to their deaths. Last year, council finally took some action: steel mesh anti-climb ­barriers were fitted on the bridge supports and further barriers were installed between the roadway and walkway. Conveniently, this was just in time to stop political protesters scaling the bridge and hanging embarrassing banners during the November G20 summit. Council is yet to install anti-jump barriers on the outer handrail of the bridge; these are not due to be finished until later this year because, according to a council briefing note, “extensive investigations” were required into weight-load, safety and “the visual amenity of this iconic structure”. (Since going to press, Brisbane City Council announced work would start on barriers this weekend.)

This final factor is important, as the Story Bridge frequently features prominently in photographs used by Brisbane Marketing to promote the Queensland capital. To locals and tourists alike, the message is that the image of the bridge defines the city. As a result, any alteration to the visual identity of the 75-year-old structure requires a considerable amount of paperwork, planning, proposals and revisions.

All the while, people continue to use the structure as a means to their end. Despite the stony silence favoured by the council and the Queensland Police Service (neither of whom agreed to be interviewed for this article), every few years notable jumping deaths galvanise public interest.

In 2003, a coronial inquest was held into the death of Mark Davidson after he climbed the structure and landed on the bridge roadway. The coroner recommended that BCC undertake a review of associated safety standards; in response, a BCC task force concluded that “physical ­barriers and additional CCTV coverage would be beneficial”. The latter recommendation was implemented: 14 cameras were installed on the bridge, while another eight with pan-and-zoom capabilities were pointed at the structure. As for the barrier idea, nothing was done.

In 2011, 48-year-old occupational therapist Kim Patterson drove to the bridge, parked the car and jumped to her death; she’d used an axe to ­murder her 14-year-old daughter earlier that morning. In 2012, Anglican Church Grammar School teacher Jason Lees cycled to the bridge, emptied his pockets, gathered his two-year-old son, Brad, in his arms and jumped over the ­barrier in a murder-suicide.

In May this year, 22-year-old Rebecca ­Mackenzie handed her shoes, phone and purse over to a friend following an argument outside a nightclub. When it was reported that she was “last seen walking towards Story Bridge”, most Brisbane residents knew exactly what that phrase meant, and the massive public appeal for information on her where­abouts ended abruptly. Her body was recovered from the Brisbane River three days later.

Why has it taken so long for anti-jump ­barriers to be installed? It’s not for lack of ­trying, nor for lack of evidence of efficacy. The Gateway Bridge that connects the suburbs of Eagle Farm and Murarrie recorded nine suicides in the year after it opened in 1986, but suicides gradually declined after 3.3m barriers were installed in 1993. Since 2010 there hasn’t been a recorded suicide at that location.

Despite the resounding success at the ­Gateway, and with the suicide-prevention ­barriers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge (where barriers were installed in 2009, with a reported 85 per cent reduction in suicides in the following two years), it seems that the Story Bridge has long been treated as a special case. “I have found those delays frustrating, because I know there have been continual, ­regular, suicides which no one knows the extent of,” says councillor Helen ­Abrahams, who represents an inner-south collection of suburbs including ­Kangaroo Point. “I think we should be giving the incidence of suicide exactly the same attention as we give deaths on roads. That is not done. It’s hidden, for possibly the right reasons, but I’m not sure it’s the right strategy in this instance.”

Bridges are prosaic structures; they are built to take us from one place to another. That these structures offer aesthetic views and associated amenity values is secondary to their function, yet in this case it seems that form has taken precedence at the cost of human lives.

At the heart of attempts to prevent this type of death is a simple yet counterintuitive concept: that most suicides are impulsive, and that if you can interrupt the behaviour of a suicidal person by restricting access to their intended means of death, most ­people won’t seek an alternative. Installing anti-jump barriers at known suicide hotspots may also interrupt the thought process of a person seeking to kill themselves, as such barriers could be read as physical proof that society cares enough about you to want to prevent your death. For those locked in a fragile mindset, the thought that someone cares is a vital lifeline.

Brisbane City Council has installed bold red and white signs at both ends of the walkway that read, Who cares about you? We do! Call ­Lifeline 13 11 14. Phones installed at either end are accompanied by a similar sign: There is hope. There is help. These six phones have only two options: to call Lifeline, or to call 000 in case of emergency. While the message is admirable, the efficacy is questionable: this method of intervention still requires a suicidal individual to make the first call.

Four lives lost at the Story Bridge per year, on average, means that the ripple effect of each death has touched many thousands of Brisbane residents. It is sadly ironic, too, that Brisbane is home to the internationally renowned Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), based at Griffith University’s Mt ­Gravatt campus. “It has been honestly quite an excruciating pain from the ­perspective of the institute, because it’s in the city, and because it’s very close to where we operate,” says Diego De Leo, 63, who has led the organisation since 1998 and who also founded World Suicide ­Prevention Day, which will this year be marked on September 10.

On a handful of occasions during his career as AISRAP director, De Leo – who lives in the Brisbane CBD – has found himself stuck in traffic as a result of an incident on the Story Bridge, which he crosses each day. “You can hear how much people are angry with the person who is considering to jump,” he says. “You can hear terrible things from people. They are late, they don’t want to be stopped, and so they scream at police, at the person themself to hurry up, to ‘make it’. Certainly it’s disruptive, but our mandate should be to first prevent the loss of a life, not just making people have their time to work on perfect schedule.”

The institute was asked to provide a report to Brisbane City Council on potential prevention methods in 2003, which included a recommendation for barriers. “I hope that the work starts soon; even next week or so,” he says when we speak in late June. “We have evidence that by fencing those places, we’ll protect lives. We must do it.”

The ripple effect reached the Vasile brothers when two of their close friends died of ­suicide in short succession in early 2011. Wesley and Tudor Vasile were unaware of the extent of mental illness, and found that many of their friends were too. So they began an initiative named Walk For Awareness, an 8km fundraiser that begins and ends in ­Captain Burke Park, beneath the Story Bridge. “We chose that venue because the bridge is an iconic location for ­Brisbane, and it has a direct relation to ­suicide in Brisbane, because we know a number of deaths [occur] there every year,” says Tudor Vasile, 33, who runs a pest control business.

In the afterglow of the first event in ­November 2011, feeling as though he’d done something positive by raising funds and awareness for ­suicide prevention and mental health support, Vasile was running across the Story Bridge one cloudy evening when he saw a shadow fall from the walkway ahead of him. “It was so disturbing. I was so upset. I couldn’t sleep for days.”

In 2014, Walk For Awareness, managed by the Vasiles and their associates under the name of Mental Awareness Foundation, attracted 700 participants and featured Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart as guest speaker. “I think the public needs to know what’s going on,” Vasile says. “F..k, it’s taking way too long. There has to be a reason why. ‘Engineering…’ But mate, the report was done five years ago. I would be sacking a few heads if it’s been taking this long to resolve.”

Vasile’s frustration is shared by Jorgen ­Gullestrup, Brisbane-based CEO of national organisation Mates In Construction, which was started in 2008 to address the uncommonly high rates of suicide among construction ­workers. “It is bullshit that we can put a mesh up [on the bridge] so people don’t hang banners, but we don’t put up a mesh so people don’t jump off,” says ­Gullestrup, 50.

“The reason we don’t put barriers up, in my view, is not because of aesthetics or cost. It’s about stigma; it’s about not being able to talk about these barriers. Politicians who react to prejudice and stigma need to be exposed. And when they do the right thing and put [the barrier] up, they need to be acknowledged for it in that context. It doesn’t cost that much. Too many people die this way.”

John O’Gorman, a retired Queensland Police officer, was instrumental in galvanising public support for the Gateway Bridge safety measures in 1993. He, too, is ­puzzled at why the Story Bridge barriers are not yet in place, 22 years after their effectiveness was proven at the city’s other major river crossing.

The blue-eyed, white-haired 69-year-old rides his motorcycle 84km south from Bribie Island to sit on a park bench in Captain Burke Park, looking up at the superstructure that he climbed on three or four occasions during his 40-year career while attempting to talk down jumpers. He once shared a packet of cigarettes with a bloke at the highest point of the bridge, despite not having smoked for eight years, and despite being terrified of heights. As he puts it, the seriousness of not taking action to prevent a death outweighed his fears every time.

“People don’t realise the horror of violent deaths,” O’Gorman says. He saw the gruesome aftermath of bridge jumpers too often. “Every one of those horrible things stays with you; they burn right into your psyche.” O’Gorman was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his retirement. Sitting here, he says he can still picture the face and clothing of every troubled person he spoke to on the bridge.

I have a story with a happy ending to show O’Gorman. I hand him my phone, which plays the YouTube video of Troy Aggett being brought back over the railing on that rainy Thursday morning in March 2012. “Everybody there, their whole being and purpose at that time is directed at preventing the circumstances from getting worse,” he says, eyes on the screen. He marvels at the thumbs-up gesture that the policewoman gives to the paramedics below, signalling for them to pack up. Job’s done. Crisis averted.

“That reminded me,” he says, handing the phone back. “Almost everybody I spoke to on the bridge said, ‘Nobody cares, nobody gives a f..k.’ I’d say, ‘Mate, if nobody gives a f..k, what are we all doing here?’ ”

He pauses, looking up, lost in thought momentarily. “And the compassionate and humane treatment of that fellow,” he says, ­shaking his head. “They put a raincoat around him – a police raincoat.”

World Suicide Prevention Day coincides with RUOK? Day on September 10; details at wspd.org.au. For help, contact: Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467, Lifeline 13 11 14, Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800, Headspace 1800 650 890, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, Survivors of Suicide Bereavement Support 1300 767 022.