Posted on 09/23/2025 12:48:09 PM PDT by CedarDave
TAOS — The sidewalks along the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge are usually thronged with tourists every day of the week.
Sightseers peer over the bridge’s 4-foot tall railings into the viridescent water coursing through the canyon 600 feet below. Couples and families stop to take selfies against some of the most dramatic backdrops New Mexico has to offer.
But on Monday, the bridge was conspicuously empty — save for drivers thrumming across the 1,280-foot span, where a bundle of flowers and dozens of rosaries along the metal railings memorialized a local teen’s suspected suicide over the weekend.
It is the third such death to take place at the Rio Grande Gorge in three weeks and the sixth so far there this year, double the annual average of three cited by officials in previous years. Two people died at the bridge in suspected suicides on Sept. 2 and 6. Deputies successfully intervened after another person had driven to the bridge on Sept. 9 with reported intentions of self-harm.
The New Mexico Department of Health reported this month that suicides rose 9% in the state from 2023 to 2024, from from 470 to 512 deaths.
In response to the spike in suicides this year, New Mexico Department of Transportation Cabinet Secretary Rick Serna ordered the bridge be temporarily closed to foot traffic. Serna was acting at the request of Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera, whose staff has recovered the bodies of dozens of suicide victims from below the bridge since it opened in 1965.
NMDOT, which manages the bridge, also hired a third security guard for the site, a vehicle to allow them to conduct patrols at both of its ends, and signage to notify drivers to not stop and barring pedestrians from walking along its sidewalks.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
“As long as we continue to do nothing, this problem will persist,” Miera told the Journal. He has pushed for an “anti-climb fence” for the Bridge, but the NMDOT has never acted on the request, citing weight concerns for the 60-year-old structure. “They seem like they want to appear to want to find resolution to this, he said.
Sorry but I don’t see the point of inconveniencing thousands of people or more because a few choose to do themselves in. This is akin to stopping all traffic on a major bridge because someone is threatening to jump. Life goes on and people have emergencies, work, deadlines etc
If someone wants to off their self it probably wouldn’t matter if the fence was 40 feet tall, they could find a way to scale it.
“So I’m hopeful. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.”
Seems like they appear to be telling you to KTA.
JMO, YMMV
If you are a terrorist and want to take out a bridge, just jump off of it.
I’m with you. And I can think of better ways to die than falling kicking puking and screaming for 6 or 7 seconds to hit a bunch of jagged lava rocks.
They're just now seeing the problem?
This is an opportunity for the progressives ruling Colorado to punish the many for the actions of a very few.
“...the progressives ruling Colorado...”
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???
I’ve been on that bridge. My legs still get queasy just thinking about it.
Yeah a local bridge had a suicide problem which went above an expressway parkland and a river. Needless to say if the body fell on the expressway or vehicles below it was a much bigger problem than just the person jumping. Not cheap but they installed an elaborate barrier that prevents anyone from jumping and that solved the problem.
ya thats it... regulate the many for the actions of 1 stupid person... smmfh...
Just put a big sign up on each approach. “What you are thinking about doing cannot be undone, it’s not like a ‘DELETE’ button”
one of the many things I like about thailand... there are not many guard rails anywhere!! The outlook there is, if you wanna die, go ahead. we are not going to mess up the view of our land’s natural state...
So tired of this kinda crap making our overseers pass laws and guard rail us to protect us from ourselves...
Yikes! Surely not deep enough water below to survive a fall and that height prob too high anyway, even.if the water was deep enough. Rocks too most likely.
Not the first time and won’t be the last time a person jumped off a bridge.
The Rio Grande may start in Colorado but it doesn’t stay in Colorado. It flows into New Mexico whether the progressives in Colorado want it to or not.
I’ve been out on that bridge. It’s a long way down.
It’s New Mexico. But it’s close to Colorado.
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