Bridgend is a sleepy little town and surrounding county in Wales. The town sits right along the the beautiful Ogmore River. It’s the quintessential kind of Welsh town with lots of rain, old bricks, and bridges.
However, once you know the area’s mysterious and tragic story, you’ll realize that something else is going on here. Even psychologists and researchers are at a loss to explain what is happening in Bridgend.
Bridgend, 2007.
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Dale Crole was 18 when he hung himself in an abandoned warehouse. Not long after, stricken by grief, Crole’s best friend David Dilling, 19, hung himself on a tree by a Bridgend church. A few days later, in a decision fueled by alcohol another of the boys’ friends, Tom Davies, 20, hung himself on the same tree that Crole used.
The Trend.
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Suddenly, the town found itself in the midst of a suicide epidemic amongst young people. Between 2007 and 2009, 25 people, many of them teenagers, killed themselves. All but one of those teens killed themselves by hanging. As of 2012, there have been 79 self-inflicted deaths in the town.
The Media.
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Some parents of the victims blame the media for being part of the problem. They speculate that perhaps their children, who were already sad, might have been influenced by the suicide coverage in the media. Seeing it not only as a way to end their suffering, but also as a way to gain attention. Apparently, the police thought so,too. In 2010, the Bridgend police asked the media to stop covering the suicides in an attempt to stem the tide.
Culture.
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Another theory about the cause of this epidemic involves a suicide cult. However, there has never been any evidence to support it. One Bridgend teen blamed the inherent boredom the small city provides. “Suicide is just what people do here because there is nothing else to do,” they said.
Via: Movie Pilot
This phenomena could be an example of what psychologists call the “Werther Effect,” in which suicides happen in clusters. While the Werther Effect is certainly possible, it doesn’t quite explain why each victim chose the hanging over less shocking ways to take their own lives.
