Back-to-back suicides renew calls for safety upgrades at Rio Grande Gorge Bridge

TAOS — Curly O’Connor remembers every detail of the day her son leapt to his death at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, from the crisp spring air flowing through the canyon to the necklace the 23-year-old was wearing before he tossed it aside, climbed the bridge’s 4-foot-tall railing and let go.

Most of all, more than 11 years later, she remembers how quickly it all happened — how easy it had been for him to take his own life at the famous steel arch bridge. The “high bridge,” as it’s known locally, sits a dizzying 600 feet above the river below and is located roughly 11 miles west of Taos, offering an essential east-west thoroughfare for commuters and a sightseeing destination for tourists.

It’s also become known as a “suicide destination,” attracting people in crisis from around the U.S. and the world to take their own lives at the iconic New Mexico landmark, where this grim reputation continues to cast a shadow over the beautiful views for which the bridge is otherwise known.

Today, O’Connor still believes that a little more time on that spring day all those years ago might have prevented the permanent loss of her son as he experienced a moment of temporary crisis.

“That’s how it happened — so simply,” O’Connor told the Journal this past week during National Suicide Prevention Month. “Now, of course, if there had been a taller railing, that might have made it a struggle. It might have been harder for him to fling himself over, and we could have possibly grabbed him in a moment. That could have led to 30 seconds and could have led to a lifetime.”

O’Connor isn’t alone in her grief. Since it was built in 1965, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge has been the site of hundreds of suicides, with an average of around three each year.

Five people are believed to have taken their own lives at the Gorge Bridge so far in 2025, including two men who died there between Sept. 2-6. Their deaths renewed calls by O’Connor, other Taos County residents and local officials for state lawmakers to fund safety upgrades at the bridge, such as higher railings, fencing or netting that might save lives.

Currently, the Gorge Bridge has 10 crisis phone lines that connect callers to a crisis counselor, but the call boxes have had a history of maintenance problems; last October, they underwent repairs after being out of service for over a month. In 2020, the New Mexico Department of Transportation, which oversees the bridge, also hired a security guard to patrol the area.

Kristine Bustos-Mihelcic, NMDOT communications director, said the agency commissioned a feasibility study in 2018 “to assess structural feasibility for potential suicide deterrent systems on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.” But more robust safety upgrades have never been funded for the site due to concerns over additional weight on the 60-year-old span and competing priorities among regional legislators.

Bustos-Mihelcic said the department is “currently working with the consultant of the 2018 study to get an updated evaluation and analysis.”

“We recognize the profound pain and emotional toll that suicide inflicts on families, first responders and entire communities,” she said in a statement on behalf of NMDOT. “Our hearts go out to those affected, including the Taos County Sheriff’s Office and the courageous first responders who serve with compassion and resolve.”

Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera had been a young deputy in 2003 when he’d first descended into the canyon to recover the body of someone who jumped from the bridge, a process he sees as an exercise of discipline in service of dignity for the deceased and their loved ones. He’s lost track of how many bodies he’s recovered from the gorge in the years since.

But the sheriff’s office and other Taos County first responders have also become skilled at crisis intervention, frequently answering calls in response to “suicidal subjects” at the bridge, where they stopped a local man from jumping on Sept. 2.

“Deputies were able, with the help of bridge security, to intervene and mitigate that action,” Miera said. “That individual was taken to Holy Cross (Medical Center) for a mental evaluation to get further mental health help.”

The incidents come the same month that the New Mexico Department of Health announced suicides rose 9% statewide from 2023 to 2024, with 512 deaths last year. While 60% of those deaths involved a firearm, Miera said deaths at the Gorge Bridge are associated with other costs most suicides don’t generate.

In addition to the community trauma each death at the bridge can cause, Miera said missions to recover the bodies of suicide victims from the rugged canyon near Taos also cost taxpayer dollars.

“The cost is increasing on any given recovery,” Miera said. “A cost like on Saturday, where we descend into the gorge after we were able to locate the deceased below, recover and ascend back up — those typically run about $6,000. If it involves a waterborne recovery, the cost can get up to upwards of $12,000 or more.”

And with no trail down into the section of the gorge below the bridge, Miera said body recovery missions also put first responders at risk, requiring them to scramble over precipitous boulder and scree fields to reach a body. It’s long been a kind of dark rite of passage for many Taos County public safety teams.

Miera has also joined calls for added safety measures at the bridge. He’s even compiled his own research for legislators that examines the efficacy of semi-canopy fencing that can buy time for people in crisis to reassess their situation and for others to intervene. He specifically references Vista Bridge in Portland, Oregon, where the installation of barriers in 2013 proved effective at stopping suicides at the highly trafficked span in southwest Portland.

“If you have a 9-foot anti-climb fence that you have to negotiate, that might break that mindset and give that precious few seconds that you need to actually stop and realize what you’re doing,” he said. “Then the (crisis) call boxes become a viable opportunity for you to seek help.”

Ted Wiard, a local counselor and founder of Golden Willow Retreat in Taos, has talked to hundreds of local residents who have lost loved ones to suicide or who have found themselves in the throes of suicidal ideations.

Like O’Connor and Sheriff Miera, he sees time as the crucial factor when negotiating a moment of crisis.

“I’m not the engineer,” Wiard said, “but raising the railing 12-inches higher or whatever it is that makes a difference that then buys time to use the phone or other support can help someone go from a second to a minute to an hour to a life.”