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Disneyland was once again rocked by another tragedy after the 24-year-old man jumped to his death from the Pixar Pals parking garage on Wednesday.
Police were called to the scene in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim around 9:30 p.m. after receiving a report of a man who had jumped from the building.
The victim was later identified as 24-year-old Jonah Alexander Edwards. His death is being investigated as a suicide.
The incident forced the closure of the Pixar Pals lot, reports The Orange County Register.
“All guests coming off the trams were directed to the Mickey and Friends parking lot. “All guests coming off the trams were directed to the Mickey and Friends parking lot,” Reddit user Alythestar77 wrote Wednesday night.
Built in 2019, the Pixar Pals Parking Structure provides easy access to nearby Disney Parks
In February, an Arizona woman, Marney Schoenfeld, 46, took her own life by jumping from the Mickey and Friends building, just two months before that, in December 2022, a man charged with endangering children, Chris Christensen, after jumping. from the same building.
The 51-year-old was charged with child abuse, endangerment and battery, according to Orange County court records.
In a letter he posted on Facebook before his death, he laid the blame on his wife and mother of his stepchildren, Marlena, claiming that during an altercation last month her “anger got the better of her” and she called the police. with allegedly false claims of abuse.
Since 2010, a total of six people have committed suicide by jumping out of parking garages at Disneyland.
The 5,500 Pixar Pals Garage has been in operation since 2019, while the Mickey and Friends Garage has been open since 2000. The latter, with 10,000 spaces, is one of the largest parking garages in the world.
About two percent of all suicide deaths in the United States involve jumping or falling.
Christensen, 51, is pictured with his wife Marlena. He was the father of three adult children from his first marriage, and stepfather to Marlena’s two daughters
Marney Schoenfeld, 46, a hairstylist from Scottsdale, Arizona, died by suicide on Saturday
The seven-story Mickey & Friends garage at the Los Angeles theme park
About 49,500 people took their own lives in the US in 2022, the highest number ever.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet calculated a suicide rate for this year, but available data shows that suicides in the US are more common than at any time since the start of World War II.
Experts warn that suicide is complicated and the recent increases could be caused by a range of factors, including higher rates of depression and the limited availability of mental health care.
But a major driver is the growing availability of guns, says Jill Harkavy-Friedman, senior vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Suicide attempts with firearms are far more likely to end in death than those by other means, and gun sales have skyrocketed, bringing firearms into more and more homes.
The U.S. suicide rate rose steadily from the early 2000s until 2018, when the national rate reached its highest level since 1941. That year, there were about 48,300 suicide deaths — or 14.2 for every 100,000 Americans.
The percentage decreased slightly in 2019. In 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell again. Some experts linked this to a phenomenon that occurs in the early stages of wars and natural disasters, when people unite and support each other.
But in 2021, suicides increased by 4 percent. According to the new data, the number rose by more than 1,000 last year to 49,449 – an increase of about 3 percent from the year before.
There was a drop of more than eight percent in the number of suicides among people aged 10 to 24 in 2022. That may be due to increased attention to mental health issues among young people and pressure on schools and others to focus on the problem, CDC officials said.
The preliminary data comes from U.S. death certificates and is considered nearly complete, but may change slightly as death information is revised in the coming months.
The CDC is expanding a suicide program to fund more prevention work in diverse communities. And there’s growing awareness of the problem and that it’s OK to ask for help, health officials say.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicide calls, please contact the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on 988.