Most of Toronto’s jumpers attempt to kill themselves in the daytime, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., and particularly during the lunch hour. The highest concentration of deaths is on the Yonge line, between Bloor and Sheppard, the lowest on the Spadina section between St. George and Downsview.
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In some notable ways, people who choose to commit suicide in the subway are a breed apart. The subway is one of the only violent means of suicide that women are as apt to use as men. (Suicidal women tend to prefer pills and cutting themselves, while men prefer more deadly means, such as guns.) Paul Links, a professor of psychiatry and the chair of suicide studies at the University of Toronto, has studied suicidal behaviour on subway systems around the world and proposes that subways are a draw to people who impulsively commit suicide, for the simple reason that they are convenient. His theory is backed up by a Montreal study that found most people attempt suicides at the subway station closest to home. “A characteristic of a suicidal state of mind is that planning is affected,” Links says. “A suicidal person isn’t thinking, ‘Well, I have six options, so if this doesn’t work, I’ll try another method.’ ” If you can prevent a person committing suicide by one method, he says, the crisis may pass, and so may the desire to die.
