To reach a suicide prevention hotline, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
Recently installed suicide barriers on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge have likely stopped at least one person from jumping off the span connecting Hancock and Waldo counties.
Just after 10 p.m. on July 11, the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call of a person “displaying suspicious behavior” on the bridge, said Lt. Cody Laite.
“Responding personnel located the involved adult who did not try to jump,” Laite said. But the person “referenced if the fence barriers were not installed, they likely would have.”
It’s the first official evidence that the long-awaited barriers are working as promised, and comes as officials in Maine and New Hampshire are also considering adding barriers to the Piscataqua River Bridge that connects the two states.
The curved fences were added to the railings on either side of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge in May, 19 years after the 2,120-foot span opened to connect the towns of Prospect and Verona Island. Standing 135 feet over the Penobscot River, the bridge was the site of at least a dozen suicides, and others had reportedly happened from the older Waldo-Hancock Bridge that it replaced.
Loved ones of people who had jumped from the bridge began to advocate for barriers on it more than a decade ago, pointing to the success of similar fencing on the Memorial Bridge in Augusta, which appeared to stop suicides there completely when it was installed in 1983. Experts have said a barrier gives people in crisis time to reconsider, and that they typically do not find another method.
Several attempts to get funding for the project from Maine lawmakers stalled for reasons including the projected cost and questions of whether the money could be better spent on prevention elsewhere. Crisis hotline phones were installed at both ends of the bridge, but were out of order at the time of at least one suicide, and people continued to jump.
In 2023, a bill directing the Maine Department Transportation to install barriers and setting aside $1.2 million in state funding for the project was successful. Federal contributions paid for the rest.
Bill supporters said the bridge had continued to attract suicides and the need for a barrier had become undeniable.
The sheriff’s office has not responded to any other calls for potential jumpers since the barriers went in, according to Laite. Neither have the Maine State Police, which covers the area on a rotating basis with the sheriff’s office, according to spokesperson Shannon Moss.
Officials are now moving ahead with a feasibility study for barriers on the Piscataqua River Bridge after three suicides there this spring. They are also looking into more camera monitoring there or using AI to warn first responders of pedestrians, according to CBS 13.
