The death punctuated a conference where delegates had focused heavily on the disproportionate incidence of suicide among Native people.
“I saw him climb over, and in that quarter of a second hoped it was a reckless joke and that he'd climb back onto the floor, but then I saw him let go and fall, then the sound, then the screams,” one witness tells ADN. The suicide took place just ahead of the closing ceremony of the convention (the closing banquet that was meant to follow was canceled), at which speakers lamented that Alaska's suicide rate is twice the national average. “It is still an epidemic,” says the chair of the Statewide Suicide Prevention Council. “There’s been no improvement in the 12 years I’ve been on the board.”
Saturday's death also echoed a similar incident at the same spot three years ago.
“I saw him climb over, and in that quarter of a second hoped it was a reckless joke and that he'd climb back onto the floor, but then I saw him let go and fall, then the sound, then the screams,” one witness tells ADN. The suicide took place just ahead of the closing ceremony of the convention (the closing banquet that was meant to follow was canceled), at which speakers lamented that Alaska's suicide rate is twice the national average. “It is still an epidemic,” says the chair of the Statewide Suicide Prevention Council. “There’s been no improvement in the 12 years I’ve been on the board.”
Saturday's death also echoed a similar incident at the same spot three years ago.
