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AUGUSTA

Police: Fence on bridge doing its job

At least one life saved

By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- The fence atop Memorial Bridge has worked -- at least once -- to prevent someone from committing suicide, authorities say.

On Aug. 5, 2009, it deterred Walter Travis, 33, a court-committed forensic patient at Riverview Psychiatric Center, from jumping into the Kennebec River, police said.

Testimony at a hearing Friday in Kennebec County Superior Court and records of the Augusta Police Department show how the safety fence has worked.

The suicide-prevention fence was reinstalled in 2006 after the bridge underwent major reconstruction.

Prior to the reinstallation, some residents circulated a petition to try to prevent it, saying no one had jumped from the bridge during the year the bridge was without the fence. In a spirited community debate, anti-suicide groups were pitted against those who wished to see the fence disappear forever in exchange for the view of the Capitol dome and other sites that are more clearly visible without the fence.

A study published in "Injury Prevention" magazine in 2007 -- done as the community was debating reinstallation of the fence -- concluded the safety fence "was effective in preventing suicides from the bridge."

The fence had been first installed in 1982 after then-Rep. Patrick Paradis successfully introduced a bill in the Legislature calling for its installation. Statistics supporting the measure showed 14 people leaped to their deaths from Memorial Bridge between 1960 and 1982. Nine of those were patients at the nearby Augusta Mental Health Institute, an institution Riverview replaced.

"I saw it first and foremost that we as a people were putting up a sign that says, 'We care. We care about you and we care about your families," Paradis, now a city councilor, said Friday.

Travis, who has been at Riverview since 2004, was committed to state custody after being found not criminally responsible for the June 24, 2003, stabbing death of a neighbor, Thomas Forni, of Bangor.

Pamela Miller, a nurse practitioner who has worked with Travis at Riverview since last October, testified Friday that Travis escaped from Riverview by slipping out with a group that was leaving.

She said he went to the bridge to commit suicide but couldn't get around the fence, so he decided to walk back to Riverview.

At Friday's court hearing, Travis was petitioning to be allowed some time off the Riverview grounds, supervised by staff at a one-to-one ratio.

Augusta police records indicate Travis' escape from Riverview was reported, and an officer located Travis on his way back to the facility about 6 p.m.

Travis told the officer he first walked into the river to try to drown himself, then tried to jump from the bridge, but the fence was too high for him to get over, according to Augusta police Sgt. Christopher Shaw.

Shaw said a couple of people died in jumps or falls from the Calumet Bridge at Old Fort Western, formerly the Father Curran Bridge. Records show the most recent one was in February 2010.

He also said one man leapt from alongside Memorial Bridge several months ago and died.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com