The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
On Thursday evening I attended the Swell Season concert at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga with my boyfriend. The venue is stunningly beautiful: the band plays in front of a large, church-like stone building atop a mountain peak that offers breathtaking views of the Bay Area.
As the end of the concert approached, I saw a man jump onto the rear corner of the roof, then sprint toward the tip of the gable and dive off the roof. He fell about 30 feet onto the stage, just feet away from lead singer Glen Hansard and died in a pool of blood before the eyes of 1,900 concert attendees. It was one of the most shocking and traumatic events I have ever witnessed, and the incident has played and replayed in my mind constantly over the past two days.
There are always big questions revolving around suicide. It’s never easy to process how a fellow human being could be so determined to end his own life. But the questions I’m struggling with as I process my own trauma aren’t about suicide, but rather about the nature of facts. I struggle to understand why I’m so angry at misinformation in news reports about the incident. I’m angry when I read eyewitness accounts recounting the man falling from the lighting fixture when I clearly saw him fall from the roof. I’m angry when I read someone write that he performed flips as he fell, when I saw him fall like a bag of cement.
Yet as I read reports that differ from what I myself saw, I start to doubt if the way I remember things happening is the way they really happened. I feel tempted to conform my memory to the details I read. And I can’t stop myself from coloring in the missing details -- the expression on the lead singer’s face or the pool of blood surrounding the dead man. These are things I rationalize that I really must not have seen because of my distance from the stage, but the memory of these details seems flush with the rest of the memory. I am frustrated that I find myself unable to differentiate what I saw from what I imagine I saw.
Ultimately, the minutiae of the incident that I’m struggling with don’t matter. But I’m suffering from a severe crisis of faith in eyewitness accounts, including my own.
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Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Diane,
I am so sorry that you were witness to that horrific event. Just today my husband was talking about what that must have been like for Hansard and Irglova and the fans.
It's very difficult to process violent death -- amazing in a culture when we see simulations of it so often.
Jul '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.
I once witnessed a suicide by gunshot at a distance of three feet. To this day, I can remember the instant before it happened, but the act itself and several minutes thereafter, remain a blur.
My guess is that this tortured young man intended to achieve immortality by killing not only himself, but also Glen Hansard. Let us just be thankful that he only achieved the former.
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
First, Diane, I'm sorry. That's a shocking and terrible thing to see. I am sorry for the man and for his family.
On the issue of eyewitness testimony in the aftermath of a traumatic event, Google the name Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who has done extensive research into the phenomenon you describe. She's become an expert witness at trial precisely because the results of her research show that most people are very near incapable of accurately remembering what happened in such a circumstance. You're not going mad--your brain is working exactly the way human brains normally do.
Your crisis of faith in eyewitness accounts is a good lesson, because we shouldn't place faith in them. Too much solid evidence suggests they're not reliable.
Aug '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Diane,
Let me begin by stating that I am so sorry you had to witness such a traumatic event. My prayers go out to everyone who witnessed the event, and even more so to the friends and family of the individual who committed suicide.
Now onto your personal crisis. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason addresses, from a philosophical perspective, some of what you are describing. There are a number of factors that make eyewitness testimony suspect, not the least of which is the trauma of the moment.
Our prior experiences shape what we see in the here and now. You might have "seen" the individual jump from a particular place because it is where your mind tells you would be the place that matches the final outcome. You might be substituting prior reasoning and experience for something that your mind is blocking out due to its horrible nature.
One should always be skeptical of eyewitness accounts, but one should never lose all faith in them either.
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
The mind can process sudden and violent events in unusual ways, mostly beyond our control. The varying accounts, viewed from varying angles, may not always be an attempt to sensationalize or exagerate. I speak from experience here. It was a traumatic event for all involved, and certain images become forever seared in the mind even if the sequence of events becomes blurred. I'm sorry it happened, and sorry that you witnessed it. Like Kenneith, I'm thankful there was only one casualty.
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Claire and Nathaniel,
If eyewitness accounts are so suspect, how are we to have faith in the accuracy of any historical account prior to the advent of the video recorder? I wonder how many big things in the accepted historical record are the result of one or very few eyewitness accounts?
I'm also reminded of Sebastian Junger's new book War (which I highly recommend). Junger testifies to the necessity of needing to carry around a video recorder at all times so that his memory wouldn't change the details of his traumatic combat experience when he sat down to write about it the next day.
Jul '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Diane Ellis, Ed.: Claire and Nathaniel,
If eyewitness accounts are so suspect, how are we to have faith in the accuracy of any historical account prior to the advent of the video recorder? I wonder how many big things in the accepted historical record are the result of one or very few eyewitness accounts?
I'm also reminded of Sebastian Junger's new book War (which I highly recommend). Junger testifies to the necessity of needing to carry around a video recorder at all times so that his memory wouldn't change the details of his traumatic combat experience when he sat down to write about it the next day. · Aug 21 at 8:55pm
Junger's book - and his documentary film Restrepo, are masterpieces.
Jun '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
People forget, sometimes mental illness is a fatal disease--as fatal as the most aggressive cancer.
"A Survivor Talks About His Leap," By Amanda Bower, TIME, May. 24, 2006
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1197707,00.html
Edited on Aug 21, 2010 at 10:30pmAug '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Miss Ellis, Sorry. I remember as a child being summoned by the other neighborhood children. There was a big excitement. I didn't know what. I followed through the tight alleyways. Then the scene: a small body was partly covered by a blanket as a policeman tried to wipe up a stream of blood running downhill on the dead-end street. His feet were ominously still. [By the way, I checked myself twice already from inserting missing information. The brain completes “incomplete” perceptions: see "filling-in phenomenon."] The unfortunate boy had been backed over by a delivery truck. He had just darted out from his grandmother's house after drinking a glass of water. I sat for the rest of the afternoon staring at my grandmother's TV set. The set was not on. I was trying to process this event. I was fixed on the futility of that last glass of water, but no “filling in” was available for that concept. Hey, I just filled in for the first time in...what, maybe 45 years! Thank you. You helped.
Jun '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
I, too, am sorry you witnessed this horrific event.
In Vancouver and suburbs, we have what is termed an ALRT, which is short for Advanced Light Rail Transit. The difference between and ALRT and LRT is that an ALRT does not have drivers; the whole system is run by a computer. I cannot be forthcoming with how I know this, but the source is beyond impeccable, there are far more suicides in the ALRT system than are ever reported, this because the transit people do not want to advertise, and who could blame them. The reason this is a favourite means of suicide is precisely because there are no drivers, consequently, the mentally ill feel free to jump in front of the trains. Psychologists theorize that it’s because no one individual, such as a driver, will be directly traumatized by their death. In your case, Diane, someone wanted an audience for their final horrendous deed? What is unfair about this suicide is that you, Diane, will carry this image with you for the rest of your life. It takes a particular kind of selfishness to want that.
Aug '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
You have my sympathies, Diane. Your terrible experience just reminded me of the time a small neighborhood kid got run over by a huge Caterpillar earth mover. I was ten, and it was a brilliant summer afternoon. The end of my street was the site of a new housing development, and workers were scraping and shaping the land. A seven-year-old boy - who lived a block away - somehow wandered too close to the machines and was crushed under a giant wheel. The hysterical driver was taken away by ambulance, and the whole neighborhood turned out. trying and find out what happened.
I so vividly remember the feeling in the air, something mysterious, like the black wings of the Angel of Death; everything seemed different, the smells, the temperature, and the sunlight even; which seemed darkened.
I'll never forget this first experience of horrific death. It's something we all need to be conscious of, lest our lives become caught up in the trivial. Life is short, and there are things we must not delay doing. The experience enriched my life by providing a black background for all that happened later on. Many more tragedies, and many joys.
May '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
My wife had a similar experience when she was younger (seeing a woman jump from a building) and reflects similar sentiment. She also expresses having wondered if she could have stopped it somehow by shouting out to her before it happened. Anyhow, she sympathizes with your plight.
May '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
You'd probably be surprised. That being said, any historian worth his salt is well aware of this reality and is openly humble about it.
John Keegan in The Face of Battle, for example, recognizes "the danger of reconstruction events solely or largely on the evidence of those who reputations may gain or lose by the account they give." In another example, John Gaddis in his Landscape of History advises historians of the inability to "recapture in your books and lectures everything that has happened in even the most particular part of the past. The best you can do...is to represent reality"
While presenting history "as it essentially happened" is the ideal, it remains an imperfect art. Most historians thus make clear the limitations of the available sources and avoid citing absolutes beyond what these particular sources allow.
Textbooks tend to masquerade this, since they are produced predominantly from secondary sources.
Edited on Aug 22, 2010 at 6:55amAug '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Talking is critical; listening is, too. I suppose we can all do more of that. I had a student-helper for a project who jumped from his eighth-floor apartment while I was back in the US for a conference. Using a computer, he had helped me count and measure bursts of electrical activity from the nervous system: a tedious job. I remember on one occasion he wanted to talk about God. I uncharacteristically avoided that discussion. I know that I was fearfully conforming to the secular silence of the academy on “God-stuff.” My reticence may have been his loss, my loss, and our loss. I was too busied up with the reductionist pole (an important pole, no less) of explaining of the nervous system to hear his plea. He perhaps needed a little less of that reductionism, and a little more holism, from me. He was a bright and delightful fellow. I miss him.
Edited on Aug 22, 2010 at 2:57pmMay '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
My prayers are with you, Diane.
It's not only traumatic memories that can be unreliable. Every time a memory is recalled, new information is attached to it -- how you feel about the memory at that particular moment in time, theories and imagination to fill in the gaps, associations with your circumstances at the time of recall, etc. I'm sure traumatic memories are particularly susceptible to inaccuracy partly because they get recalled and replayed far more often than most memories.
It might help you, Diane, to attempt to associate the memory with something good every time you think about it. For example, the support you receive from friends and family in healing can be a good memory to attach to it. I believe this method helps to heal.
Suicide is rarely driven by sadness alone. Extreme sadness saps one of will and energy, making extraordinary action an impossibility. It's only when sadness is combined with rage, delusion, or some other state that the act is done. Many people are suicidal without ever actually committing the act.
I'd guess that people who kill themselves publicly often want others to see how distraught they are before they die.
Edited on Aug 22, 2010 at 8:23amAug '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
I remember walking down into a deep ravine, wondering why a crowd had gathered on the bridge spanning it. It turned out a young man had jumped and was still alive. There were people attending to the young man, and they called out to me, "Has anyone called 911?" I said I didn't know, but I'd walk back up and check. They called out, "Don't check, just call, fer cryin' out loud!"
But my cellphone didn't get reception in the ravine, so I had to walk back out of it anyhow. During the climb, I wondered whether my calling would be worth it, or whether it'd just be tying up the 911 lines to report an emergency several people had already reported. So I hesitated -- just a little -- in dialing.
In the seconds while I was hesitating, an ambulance arrived: obviously someone had called many minutes beforehand.
I still feel ashamed, though, for hesitating at all. What if everyone had thought someone else had called? What if things had been different and I had been responsible for the bystander effect?
Edited on Aug 22, 2010 at 10:26amRe: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
How horrible, Diane. What a terrible thing to observe. I've always thought "public" suicide was the most the most selfish and vengeful act one could commit, in that it's effect on others is so traumatic. Even leaving a note is a way to blame others and inflict pain. If it really was only about ending one's life, it could be done in a way that might leave intentions in doubt. As for the accuracy of eyewitness accounts, I recommend a book called The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. The title is based on an experiment in which viewers were asked to watch a tape of basketball players and count the number of passes that were made. In the middle of the tape, someone in a gorilla suit walks in, pauses, faces the camera, beats his chest, and walks out. In various viewings, up to 50% of those who participated never saw the gorilla. After reading this book, I no longer believe anyone's eyewitness account of anything, especially my own.
May '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Couldn't we say the reports you read are reliable in essence if not in detail? And as different as they are from each other and from what you saw, they all serve to confirm the basic reality, no?
I mean, suppose investigators were to go around gathering testimony. There would be discrepancies, obviously. But isn't is so that the true story emerges?
May '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
This is what makes a good history. No history is merely a list of facts. Those facts must be organized, qualified, contextualized, and prioritized by relevance. A good historian, like a good witness, has a knack for weeding through clutter and discrepancies to find the essence of a situation.
Jul '10
Re: The Mountain Winery Suicide: What I Remember (or think I do)
Accidents are one thing. This sounds like an act of aggression. The young man wanted to create a lasting imprint on you the audience. To share his pain, I imagine. I am sorry that you had to be assaulted like that.