Saturday, September 22, 2007

An NYU student commits suicide

According to the university's student newspaper he jumped from the dorm roof. It seems early for the pressures of the semester to take it's toll this way:

Residents identified the student as Allan Oakley Hunter, known by friends as Tre. NYU officials said it appears he committed suicide.

[...]

In an e-mail to the NYU community, President John Sexton wrote, "Part of suicide's pain is the elusiveness of any easy answers. However, notwithstanding the absence of easy answers, some things are very clear: we have a responsibility to keep ourselves, our loved ones, and others around us safe and well."

GSP freshman Lena Nguywen - who lives on the 8th floor, where Hunter lived - said he was "kind of isolated."

"He kept to himself a lot of the time," she said. "He wasn't very social."

[...]

In the 2003-2004 school year, there were a rash of suicides at NYU, with five students jumping to their deaths - three in the course of five weeks. Another killed herself in Sept. 2004. In response, NYU sealed off all balconies and created the Wellness Exchange, which addresses mental health issues.
Let's prayer that there isn't a rash of copycat suicides in the coming weeks.