Outcomes in suicidal bridge jumping in the Lower Mainland
department or school: Medicine, Faculty of
department or school: Medicine, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Stephanian, Dylan
issued: 2019-12-18T17:46:11Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Master of Science - MSc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: On average, one person attempts suicide by jumping from a bridge in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia once every 14 days, but the population that jumps and their outcomes following a suicide attempt are poorly understood. A multi-agency retrospective chart review was performed using records from the Canadian Coast Guard, Joint Rescue Coordination Center, police departments, and the British Columbia Coroner’s Service to identify incidents. A complete picture of each incident was then built by identifying corresponding BC Ambulance Service and hospital records, and linking all records for each incident. This methodology successfully identified a comprehensive list of incidents, and may be useful in future prehospital and search and rescue medicine research. Records from the ten agencies involved in these incidents were collected and linked to create a dataset describing all known jumps from a bridge >12m in height in the Lower Mainland of BC from January 1, 2006 to February 28, 2017. 1208 incidents were identified, 273 were confirmed jumps, and 197 were jumps into water. The multi-agency linkage portion of the study was highly successful; outcomes were identified for 90.6% of all incidents. The population that jumps from a bridge is similar to those who commit suicide by other means. Those jumping are mostly male (74.9%), and early to mid-life (IQR 28-48 years). Of those who jumped and hit water, 59.9% were promptly recovered, 25.4% were iii transported to hospital and 15.2% survived. Survival is dependent on bridge height, patient age, and time interval between jumping and being recovered from the water. The presence or absence of vital signs, and level of consciousness (measured on the AVPU scale) on recovery appears to prognosticate survival to hospital discharge. This may assist prehospital care providers making treatment decisions for these patients.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/72847
note: Outcomes in suicidal bridge jumping in the Lower Mainland by DYLAN STEPHANIAN BASc, The University of British Columbia, 2014 Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Experimental Medicine) The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) December, 2019 © Dylan Stephanian, 2019 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Outcomes in suicidal bridge jumping in the Lower Mainland Submitted by Dylan Stephanian in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Experimental Medicine. Examining committee Dr Jeff Brubacher, Emergency Medicine Supervisor Dr Doug Brown, Emergency Medicine Supervisory Committee Member Dr Andrew MacPherson, Emergency Medicine External Examiner iii Abstract On average, one person attempts suicide by jumping from a bridge in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia once every 14 days, but the population that jumps and their outcomes following a suicide attempt are poorly understood. A multi-agency retrospective chart review was performed using records from the Canadian Coast Guard, Joint Rescue Coordination Center, police departments, and the British Columbia Coroner’s Service to identify incidents. A complete picture of each incident was then built by identifying corresponding BC Ambulance Service and hospital records, and linking all records for each incident. This methodology successfully identified a comprehensive list of incidents, and may be useful in future prehospital and search and rescue medicine research. Records from the ten agencies involved in these incidents were collected and linked to create a dataset describing all known jumps from a bridge >12m in height in the Lower Mainland of BC from January 1, 2006 to February 28, 2017. 1208 incidents were identified, 273 were confirmed jumps,…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2020-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0387208
language: eng
degree discipline: Experimental Medicine
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/72847