Hanging now the preferred method of suicide in Pretoria
Pretoria has suicide rate of 25 per 100,000 people annually, 14 times higher than the national average
Hanging has replaced a bullet to the brain as the preferred method of killing yourself in SA’s suicide capital. Of the 957 suicide cases handled by Pretoria’s medico-legal laboratory between 2007 and 2010‚ 43% had hung themselves‚ twice the number who used a gun.An earlier study that analysed suicides in the city between 1997 and 2000 said guns were the most popular method‚ particularly among women.Four forensic medicine researchers from the University of Pretoria argue in the South African Medical Journal that the introduction of the Firearms Control Act in 2004‚ which clamped down on gun ownership‚ "has positively impacted on the use of such weapons in committing suicide".Pretoria’s suicide rate of 25 per 100,000 people annually is 14 times higher than the national average‚ largely driven by white males. Whites make up only 22% of the city’s population but in the latest survey half the suicides were white and three-quarters were male.Members of the South African National Defence F...
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