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21 August 2006
I'LL STARVE TO DEATH
PLUNGE DAD'S PLEDGE
Martin Fricker In Crete
SOBBING in his hospital bed, plunge dad John Hogan was refusing all food and drink yesterday as he determined
to starve himself to death.
The tiling boss, who has already stopped taking pain relief and whose two brothers committed suicide, told medical
staff in Crete: "I don't want any food. I deserve everything I get."
Hogan, 32, lay in torment as his daughter Mia, two, visited her grandmother. Mia survived when her father jumped
50ft from a balcony cradling her and her brother Liam in his arms. Liam, six, who landed on his skull, was killed.
A source at Heraklion University Hospital revealed: "John doesn't eat his food and won't even drink anything.
Nurses have put a drip in him, but that's all.
"He's still in a lot of pain because he had metal plates inserted in his broken leg."
Hogan's hospital roommate, Manos Athnaeioy, 43, said yesterday: "Every day he cries and sobs. He prays all the
time and speaks about his son.
"He doesn't seem to be able to accept that the boy is dead - but he knows what he's done.
"When he got to hospital he didn't remember what happened. It wasn't clear. Only now is he beginning to realise
the truth.
"He tells me 'I love my son. I love my children. God forgive me. I've ruined so many lives. What have I done?'
At night he cries and doesn't do anything else. There's a TV and he has a book. But he just lies there staring ahead.
"It's a terrible scene. His mother comes every day and is obviously heartbroken. She's lost her grandson and
now her son wants to die. All they talk about is what happened. Nothing else.
"John just says 'I'm sorry mum. I'm sorry mum. Sorry mum.' He repeats this over and over again."
Hogan, of Bradley Stoke, Bristol, is accused of murder and attempted murder.
Prosecutors will today grill him for the first time about Tuesday's tragic events. After taking a statement
at his bedside, they will wait for him to recover from his injuries before he makes his first court appearance. If convicted,
he faces life jail.
Yesterday it emerged that Hogan's 17-year-old younger brother Stephen took an overdose in 1996. The tragedy
came months after the death of their father John, 56, from multiple sclerosis.
In 2004 older brother Paul, 35, jumped off a bridge and killed himself after earlier trying to burn down the
family home.
A resident who lives near Hogan's mother Josephine in Bristol, said: "John must have been affected by what happened,
losing his father and two brothers in such a terrible way."
Hogan is believed to have plucked his children from their beds and leapt from the fourth floor of the Petra
Nare Hotel, in Ierapetra, after rowing with wife Natasha when she said she wanted a divorce.
It was claimed yesterday he wrongly believed A&E nurse Natasha, 34, was cheating on him. Police say he was
drunk and on anti-depressants. Josephine has been visiting her son every day in hospital, where he is under armed guard and
round-the-clock suicide watch.
A hospital official said she is allowed an "almost unlimited number" of visits for humanitarian reasons.
A neighbour in Bristol said: "Josephine has had a tragic life. She's an adorable lady and a wonderful grandmother.
My heart goes out to her." Yesterday Natasha's mother Elizabeth Steel returned to her home in Clevedon, Somerset, tenderly
clasping little Mia in her arms.
Mia returned to the UK on Friday with her mother after being discharged from hospital in Crete following treatment
for a broken arm.
Liam's body was due to be flown to the UK yesterday.
Things to consider
Many of us who
have attempted to kill ourselves have failed to die, yet have succeeded in destroying our lives, and the
lives of our loved ones in the process.
Once we have resolved to end it all we need a method which
can't go wrong. Something which is 'foolproof' and can not fail. Or so we think. But on many many occassions there is life
after a serious suicide attempt. A terrible life worse than before we attempted to end our previous lives.
Electrocution is viewed as one foolproof
method of suicide. Unfortunately electrocution often fails to kill us leaving us terribly mutilated and facing a
whole new life sometimes without one (or both) hands, arms and/or legs. Jumping is yet another 'foolproof' popular
method which can seriously backfire leaving what's left of our bodies broken and useless; but sometimes with our minds alive
and aware that they are imprisoned in what are essentially living breathing corpses. Others of us who jump will end up
brain-damaged and will also always need 24-hour care. Some of us exist in a foglike state unable even to communicate.
But, worst of all, some of us will BE FULLY AWARE that we used to be "normal".
Another of our most common 'foolproof' methods involves the taking of too many pills-n-potions.
Again this often backfires leaving us with extensive liver damage. It is said that death by liver damage is extremely
unpleasant and that we actually turn yellow before dying.
Shooting is also a popular yet foolproof method which
doesn't always work. There is a growing number of us who have survived shooting ourselves in the head. Some are now nothing
more than vegetables. Vegetables who need 24-hour care and attention. Often by the self same loved ones whose lives we chose
to destroy by our own actions. Of all of our 'foolproof' methods the most reliable simply has to be Old Age. Try it...After
all, what have we got to lose
Suicide bid cost the NHS £2.8m The
METRO 6/12/05
A suicidal mother who took an overdose is to receive £2.8million after claiming an ambulance crew took too
long to come to help her.
Clare Burchell, 25, agreed the out-of-court settlement for the brain damage she suffered after
swallowing 45 tablets.
It was alleged that the 999 crew took nearly 30 minutes to arrive at her home - when it
should have been there within ten minutes.
By the time she reached hospital, doctors were unable to reverse the effects of her brain being
starved of oxygen and of a heart attack.
Mrs Burchell overdosed on co-proxamol tablets at her home in Blackpool in October 2001.
At the time, she was suffering from post - natal depression following the birth of her
second child almost a year earlier.
Her husband, Dean, dialled 999 when he found her still unconcious.
But the ambulance crew allegedly failed to intubate her properly or give her the correct drugs.
As a result of the brain damage, she will never work again and needs 24-hour care. She is confined to a wheelchair and has
a memory span 'measured in seconds'
Lancashire Ambulance Service NHS Trust admitted there was a delay after the crew
got lost but insisted it was 'justified' and denied liability.
After a High Court judge agreed the payout, the Burchell's lawyer said:'The family has
waited four years for a settlement and after their tragic experience, we are relieved they have not had to endure the trauma
of a trial'.
Remember: Suicide is a permanent
solution to a temporary problem
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Suicide father tried to kill girls
MOLD A father who took an attempted suicide leap into a flooded quarry, holding his daughters
aged 6 and 9, was jailed for eight years (Russell Jenkins writes).
The 36-year-old man, from the Caernarfon area, who cannot be named, had pleaded guilty
to attempted murder.
Mold Crown Court was told that the man had been devastated when his relationship
with the girls' mother broke up. The man was the natural father of the six year old child and regarded himself as the father
of her sister. He had phoned his former partner and told her to say to her daughters. He took the girls to Bryn Hall, a quarry
near Bethesda, North Wales, and held them by the hand on either side before jumping. As soon as he hit the water, he did what
he could to save the girls and all three were rescued by an RAF helicopter.
The Times: Nov 25, 2006
Commuters horror at failed suicide jumpThursday, February 22, 2007
The woman lies in the 'suicide pit' after jumping from the platform A young woman lies between train tracks after an apparent suicide attempt on the London Underground.
The woman was pictured lying in the 'suicide pit' after ignoring pleas by commuters before jumping and narrowly
missing the 630-volt traction rail.
With the next train one minute away, passengers at Victoria sounded the emergency alarm on the station wall.
London Underground staff arrived in seconds, and one used his radio to stop the trains and get the track
current turned off.
They then climbed down on to the track to help the woman but she ran away along the trough to the point where
it ends at the end of the platform. There she was led away by LU staff and British Transport Police officers.
She told them: "If not today, I am going to do it tomorrow." The scene was captured on video by security
guard Yohsef Khan, 29, of Mile End.
The woman was arrested for trespass, endangering safety on the railway and obstruction of trains with intent.
She was bailed and is due to appear at Central London Magistrates Court next month.
Two who survived suicide pact now are facing felony charges
Wednesday, January 05, 2000
By Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A man and a woman charged with aiding each other's suicide attempts in June will undergo additional counseling over the
next month before a district justice considers whether to proceed with the felony charges against them.
District Justice Mary Grace Boyle yesterday continued until Feb. 8 the preliminary hearing for Sandy Cummings and Greg
Woods at the request of defense attorneys.
The delay will allow Cummings, 46, of South Park, to continue with alcohol and drug counseling on the South Side and to
have an operation to repair damage to her right hand that she suffered during the June 16 suicide attempt, said her attorney,
Cynthia Reed Eddy.
In addition, Cummings will have to submit to an evaluation by a psychiatrist to comply with a requirement Boyle placed
on Cummings' being allowed to remain free on her own recognizance.
If all the conditions are met by the hearing next month, Eddy said she plans to ask the Allegheny County district attorney's
office and South Park police to drop the felony charge of aiding a suicide that was filed against Cummings in October.
At the request of Assistant District Attorney Stephie Fernsler, Boyle yesterday also added another condition to the bond
for Cummings and Woods -- they are prohibited from having any contact with each other.
"Not by phone, not in person," Boyle told Woods. "You're not to call her. Miss Cummings, you're not to call him. No contact
means no contact."
Woods, 43, will spend the next six months at Alpha House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Shadyside. Woods
was at Alpha House for about two months before he left in October.
A spokesman for the Hemlock Society USA in Denver, which does not endorse suicide but supports legalized physician aid
in dying for terminally ill patients, said last month that he was not familiar with any other cases in which two people were
charged in the other's unsuccessful suicide attempt.
Suicide in Pennsylvania, unlike in other states, is not a crime, but it is illegal to help someone else commit suicide,
Eddy said. In preparing for Cummings' defense, Eddy said her legal research failed to turn up any other instances in which
aiding suicide charges were filed under the 1973 state law that created the felony charge.
Cummings and Woods attempted suicide at her South Park apartment in June by taking about 200 prescription pills each, washed
down with vodka. The pills belonged to Cummings and were prescribed to treat her multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia.
Cummings, during an interview last month, said she decided to commit suicide because of the pain and depression from the
diseases. Woods said he joined Cummings in the suicide attempt because he was also depressed by her condition and by his own
alcohol and drug abuse.
Cummings and Woods were each found hours later by a maintenance man who was alerted by Cummings' mother. Each was in a
coma for several days and then spent part of the summer in hospitals and rehabilitation.
No charges were filed at the time of the suicide attempt, but in late October, South Park charged Cummings with helping
Woods in the suicide attempt by providing her pills to him and they charged Woods with helping Cummings attempt suicide because
he did not prevent her from taking her pills.
Cummings and Woods said they felt the charges were unnecessary and served to punish them again for their suicide attempts.
The charges were filed after Cummings' sister, Joyce Imling, contacted Boyle. Imling said last month that she contacted the
district justice because she wanted to find out whether Boyle could help Cummings.
Assistant District Attorney Scott Bradley, a spokesman for District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. who was at yesterday's
hearing, said prosecutors are concerned mostly with the "individual welfare" of Cummings and Woods and for that reason did
not oppose the continuance of the preliminary hearing.
Eddy and Assistant Public Defender Kenneth Snarey, who represents Woods, agreed.
"Our goal and the goal of the district attorney's office is to get treatment for these people," Eddy said.
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