Grieving family fights for prevention measures at a Minneapolis suicide hotspot

The Washington Avenue Bridge spans the East and West Banks of the University of Minnesota campus, with the murky Mississippi scrolling underneath. The bridge's lower deck is a busy route for cars and light rail trains, the upper deck for bikers and pedestrians. Views from the bridge — of downtown Minneapolis, campus buildings and river bluffs — offer the perspective of floating above the bustling world below.

Kayla Gaebel was 29 years old, with a fiancé and two young children, when she went missing from her Shakopee home last November. The next day, police traced her GPS to the university she'd attended. Security camera footage from the Washington Avenue Bridge showed Gaebel jumping.

Gaebel had a personality "as full as her curls," and was a devoted parent who worked in childcare, said her mother, MJ Weiss, of Inver Grove Heights. "It was a total shock because it was just something we never expected her to do," Weiss said.

The day after Weiss learned of her daughter's death, she walked across the Washington Avenue Bridge. She noticed the railings were only 4 feet high. And signage addressing those in crisis didn't seem well-worded. "When you're looking into the water, you go, 'This is pretty nice,' " she said. "But then you begin to realize that it doesn't have anything to protect the students or the public."

Weiss soon learned that her daughter was one of perhaps hundreds of people who have died on the Washington Avenue Bridge, known as a suicide hotspot by prevention advocates. She vowed to save others by pushing to erect physical barriers, an expensive but effective way to impede suicide attempts that's been proposed in the past, to no avail.

Working with Bloomington-based Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE), Weiss built a coalition of supporters who have experienced suicide loss, including a father whose son died at the bridge just weeks before Gaebel. The group is recommending barriers that would be funded through the university's request for a $500 million reinvestment in existing infrastructure, which the Minnesota Legislature votes on this month.

Suicide prevention efforts have become more urgent as Minnesota's suicide rate has increased by more than 50% over the past two decades. Suicide is now the second most common cause of death for those ages 10-24, a demographic that overlaps heavily with those traversing the Washington Avenue Bridge.

A bridge with a history

There's a reluctance among suicide-prevention advocates, including SAVE, to identify a site of frequent suicides, for fear of contagion. Yet calling attention to a problematic location can draw resources to make it safer. And the Washington Avenue Bridge has had the unfortunate association with suicide ever since noted poet and U professor John Berryman jumped to his death there in 1972.

In recent decades, there have often been a few suicide deaths from the bridge each year. But reporting is spotty. In 2006, the year two women in their 20s were believed to have died by suicide at the bridge, a University police official told the Minnesota Daily he estimated such deaths happened three to four times a year. In 2017, the Daily reported that student security monitors alerted potentially suicidal students to University Security about once every month or two.

More recently, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office recorded two people who jumped to their deaths from the bridge in 2023 and two in 2020. But the county's water patrol unit recovers more bodies in that area, so it's possible numbers are greater.

In addition to crisis-number signage, the bridge's safety elements include blue-light emergency call boxes and security cameras that are part of a campus-wide network being monitored 24/7. (If someone is spotted behaving in a concerning manner, officers are dispatched.)

But security presence is generally minimal. And even at mid-day, minutes can lapse between passersby. "You can see why people go there because there's nothing to stop them," Weiss said. "It's just too easy."

Erich Mische, the executive director of SAVE, describes the call boxes and signs as "woefully inadequate" because they rely on a person in crisis initiating their own intervention. And cameras might not bring help in time.

"I watched Kayla's video," Weiss said, "And there was no blue light, no sign, no anything that was gonna stop her. She was past that point." Yet there was time, Weiss noted, to deter her daughter. "She was on that bridge — from parking her car to the event — for seven minutes, so she had adequate time to have somebody save her, had the resources been there."

Barriers do work

One common misconception about suicide is that it's planned in advance. Mische notes that the time between suicidal ideation taking hold and making an attempt can be roughly 5 to 20 minutes. That's why reducing access to lethal means — trigger locks on guns, secure storage of pharmaceuticals, bridge barriers — can be very effective. It halts the attempt without requiring a person in crisis to reach out.

"Data shows that if you interrupt that process, the likelihood somebody's going to continue drops precipitously," Mische said. "And once they get through that time parameter, the likelihood they're going to try to attempt suicide in the future drops significantly as well."

A study of bridges in Switzerland showed that the presence of barriers at least 7.5 feet tall reduced suicides by nearly 70 percent.

At the American bridge with the most suicide deaths, the Golden Gate, new stainless-steel nets below the deck have curtailed losses. In 2023, as installation was in process, the number of deaths dropped to about half the previous annual average.

In the Twin Cities, St. Paul's High Bridge, another Mississippi crossing, has also experienced many suicides — one roughly one per year in the 2010s except for 2015, when the number spiked to seven) A 2018 renovation replaced a waist-high railing with a 9-foot-tall ornamental fence, which Mische says has been an effective deterrent. "It makes it virtually impossible for somebody to use that bridge to die by suicide," he said. "It also creates the opportunity for people to intervene."

Another plea for change

If barriers work, why don't more bridges have them?

In the case of the Washington Avenue Bridge, a 2017 task force's proposal to raise the railings met with opposition due to its $3 million price tag and concerns about aesthetics.

Alice Roberts-Davis, vice president of University Services, said the U's numerous failed efforts to get state funding for updating the bridge are part of the Legislature's long-standing underinvestment in maintaining campus facilities. This year, she said there's more traction due to the U's extra efforts to connect with state legislators and personal testimonials from Weiss and others, organized under the name Kayla's Hope.

"Their being brave enough and strong enough to go and talk to people over and over again about their story has been very compelling," said Roberts-Davis.

Rep. Mohamud Noor, a Democrat whose district includes the U campus, said he supports funding the barriers as well as more mental-health resources for students. "Not having a support structure present — there's a gap because they've left their families to come to college — they're vulnerable," he said.

As difficult as advocacy work has been for Gaebel's family, Weiss's sister Gina Morgan said they felt compelled act. "Families can't go through this like we've gone through this."

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Text Line counselor.