The offering of a hand of friendship can stop someone intent on suicide

Last week, I attended a meeting here in Galway to set up riverside patrols and prevent drownings. According to the Connacht Tribune newspaper, 67 people have signed up as volunteers, which is positive.

While it is unknown how many of these deaths are self-inflicted — not every such death is suicide — I suspect the majority are deliberate. I have a special interest in this project, as I was one of those people who crossed bridges on numerous occasions, the only thought in my head being that I should enter the waters and end my life.

I have often wondered why I never took that ultimate step, and I had reasons to do so, or at least that is how I felt at the time. But on each occasion there was a more powerful force operating and this stopped me, despite my suicidal/depressive frame of mind.

I used to be sceptical of projects such as riverside patrols. I used to think if someone was determined to take their life they were going to do it.

But if a person can intervene at this critical point, as a volunteer patrolling the banks of the Corrib, maybe that destructive thought pattern can be broken temporarily.

Tommy Roddy

Lower Salthill

Galway