Sad Feet

We've been tracking the strange saga of shoe-clad feed washing ashore in the Salish Sea (British Columbia) pretty closely.

According the authorities--the mystery's been solved: it's suicides: "Mr Fonseca [an investigator on the case] told the New York Post that most of the victims jumped from a bridge over the Fraser River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver [..] Mr Fonseca said: ‘It’s very explainable. The unusual nature of this is that the feet were found in a very short period of time.’"

I'm not sure exactly which bridge Mr. Fonseca is referring to--perhaps the Skybridge?

Skybridge over the Frazier River in Canada

There do seem to certain structures that are suicide magnets, like the Golden Gate Bridge and Toronto's Prince Edward Viaduct. (Toronto's Prince Edward Viaduct lost its draw after the installation of the Luminous Veil, a barrier stopping would be jumpers.)

It's difficult, quite frankly, for me to write about this because suicide has touched my life too many times. Once I had to wake my aunt up in the middle of the night when the police called us to tell her that her son had killed himself. Over the next several years, both of her other children--my older cousins--killed themselves. That's not the only time I've been with a parent when they heard that their child had committed suicide. And another time I sent a postcard to a friend who was living with his parents, only to find out, minutes after I dropped the postcard in the mailbox, that he had killed himself about a month before.

So I'm keenly aware of the tragedy and horror of these events.

But I do have to say that, to quote Mr. Fonseca, the fact that "the feet were found in a very short period of time" does still seem awfully bizarre to me.

Has anyone explained this element of the mystery?