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Abstract
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On September 11, 2001, after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, some 200 people jumped from the upper floors of the towers to their death. This essay considers whether any were suicides and how we might explore the states of mind of those who jumped.
The two towers eventually collapsed. As of August 16, 2002, 2,726 death certificates had been filed related to the attack (Schwartz & Berenson, 2002). Of these, 2,713 died on September 11, and 13 died later; 2,103 (77%) were male and 623 female; the median age was 39, range 2-85. However, it is estimated that 2,819 people died in these attacks, a number which includes passengers on the airplanes, people in the towers, and people on the ground, but not including the 10 terrorists. All the deaths were classified as homicides by the medical examiner. Leonard (2011) noted that the Medical Examiner's office describes these individuals as fallers rather than jumpers.
Among those deaths were some by suicide - those who jumped from the WTC - and these deaths in particular raise interesting issues for those of us who study suicide. This essay will discuss these issues. The first issue concerns whether we should even study these deaths. As Flynn and Dwyer (2004) asked, would studying these deaths simply result in more pain to those who were traumatized by this attack? Is asking questions mere morbid curiosity? Yet, on the other hand, Leonard (2011) labeled these deaths as "the 9/11 victims America wants to forget." Air-brushing these deaths out of our memory is a disservice to our commitment to scientific inquiry. Leonard suggested that the avoidance of discussing these individuals is because Americans want to focus on patriotism and courage, and those who chose to jump do not epitomize this....
Copyrights belong to the Author(s). Suicidology Online (SOL) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal publishing under the Creative Commons License 3.0.
Language: en |