A man survived a jump off a billboard onto the Military City highway in a suicide attempt in Khamis Mushayt Saturday night. As the man was sitting half-naked on the billboard, motorists pulled over and gathered around him. Brandishing his national ID, the man was shouting hysterically to explain his decision for committing suicide. As he got swallowed in an emotional depression, the people around him tried to talk him out of it, but they couldn't. When the seemingly deadly end was approaching, a man started to climb the pole to rescue him. But when the man sensed that someone was trying to prevent him, he immediately jumped from the billboard right onto the highway. The man was then transferred to hospital with serious head injuries. Meanwhile, in Dammam an inquiry has been launched after a Girls' College of Arts student was found unconscious on the campus after taking a suspected drug overdose in an apparent suicide attempt Saturday. It was not known yet what type of pills the girl swallowed. The Red Crescent rushed to the college and attempted resuscitation. The girl was then transferred to Dammam Hospital where she was stated to be in stable condition. It was unclear what caused the girl to attempt suicide. A rare 2006 study of suicide survivors carried out by Salwa Al-Khatib, a researcher at King Saud University in Riyadh, found that 96 suicide cases involved women compared to four cases involving men. A news agency quoted her as saying that the hospital where she worked as a counselor receives on average 11 suicide attempt cases by women each month. “Women go through severe depression due to social pressure,” Khatib said. – Okaz __
