Portland Teen Jumps To Death
Repo...@uni.com
Portland Teen Jumps To Death
05/03/99
Reuters
(PORTLAND) -- A Portland teenager jumped to her death as she and her
mother
drove over the Marquam Bridge on the I-5 Freeway in Portland. Police say
the
two were talking about the girl's drug problems when the girl became
upset and
tried to jump from the moving car. The mother stopped and the girl
jumped out
and ran to the edge of the bridge and disappeared over the railing.
----------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 5/7/99 online edition of The
Oregonian
newspaper:
'What ifs' haunt mother after death of daughter, 15
"She just slipped through my fingers," says the mother of the teen, who,
apparently high on LSD, threw herself off a bridge
Friday May 7, 1999
By Michelle Roberts of The Oregonian staff
If only she had taken another road.
Maybe if she had driven straight to the clinic instead of stopping at
home
first.
What if her daughter's shirt hadn't torn, breaking the girl free from
her
mother's white-knuckled grasp?
Vicki Lynn Bakke has persecuted herself with questions, second-guessing
every
detail and decision that led to her child's horrific death Sunday.
Bakke and her 15-year-old daughter, Kimberly Christine Roca, were on
their way
to enroll the girl in a drug treatment program when the teen-ager,
apparently
high on LSD, jumped out of Bakke's car and threw herself off the top
deck of
the Marquam Bridge in downtown Portland.
"We got to the bridge, and Kim was looking out at the water," Bakke
said. "Then
all of a sudden, she opened the door. I slammed on the brakes. I was
screaming,
'Kim, no! Kim, no!' I was pulling at her clothes to keep her in the car,
but
they were ripping. She just slipped through my fingers."
Toxicology tests are pending, but Bakke thinks LSD triggered her
daughter's
actions. Her death was ruled a drowning.
Bakke hopes that talking about the experience will alert other parents
to the
dangers of acid.
According to a 1998 study, LSD was one of the most-used drugs among
Oregon 11th
graders, falling behind alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes and inhalants.
Because the hallucinogen is so closely identified with the hippie
culture of
the 1960s, LSD often falls beyond the radar screens of today's parents,
experts
said.
"I think we've forgotten its dangers," said Dr. Dale Walker, chairman of
the
Oregon Health Sciences University Department of Psychiatry. "LSD users
are
often motivated to do dangerous things -- in this case, jumping off of a
bridge
-- for what they perceive to be logical reasons. That's why LSD is a
remarkably
dangerous drug."
Because LSD affects the emotional center in the brain and distorts
reality, a
user -- particularly a first-time user -- is subject to the extremes of
euphoria and panic. The drug also can trigger feelings of grandeur that
lead to
dangerous behaviors.
Bakke thinks her daughter might have become fixated on the water as they
drove
across the bridge. The drug, Bakke said, might have compelled her to
jump
without thinking. There was no indication Kim had contemplated suicide
or had
attempted to end her life before.
In 1996, more than 14 percent of high school juniors in Oregon reported
having
used the drug, according to the Northwest Professional Consortium.
LSD is dissolved in alcohol, and drops of the solution are put on
blotter paper
or in a sugar cube then chewed or swallowed, making it easy for novice
drug
users to consume. It also has been put into microdots, or tiny squares
of
gelatin. To reach younger buyers, illegal manufacturers even print
cartoon
characters and colorful symbols on the blotter paper.
Known as "acid," "tabs," "doses," "trips," "hits" and "sugar cubes," LSD
appeals to many teens because it is cheap and easy to hide, Walker said.
It has
less-detectable physical symptoms than alcohol or pot and is inexpensive
at $1
to $5 a hit.
Bakke said she had learned of her daughter's acid use the night before
her
death. Kim had acted "happier and more awake" recently, but her mother
said she
mistook what she now thinks were the effects of the drug for "a good
mood."
"I thought she was just starting to feel better about things in her
life," said
Bakke, who was divorced from Kim's father within the past three years.
He did
not respond to interview requests.
The tragedy began to unfold rapidly Saturday night, when family friends
in
Beaverton told Bakke they suspected that her daughter was high on LSD.
The girl
stayed overnight at the friends' home "because I thought it would be a
safe
place for her," Bakke said.
Sunday morning, Bakke drove from her Northeast Portland home to pick up
her
daughter. On the way back to Portland, the two talked about Kim entering
drug
treatment, or at least getting evaluated that morning for substance
abuse,
Bakke said.
"She was very compliant and agreeable," Bakke said. "She said, 'Yeah.
This is
bad stuff.' " But when Bakke asked the girl where she had gotten the
drugs, Kim
abruptly jumped out of the car without saying a word.
Bakke doesn't think it was the question that upset her daughter.
"It seemed like she was thinking reasonably, and then all of a sudden it
was
like the drug took her," Bakke said.
Kim, who wore a nose ring and liked to dress in dark clothing, had
experimented
with marijuana, her mother said. The girl had been suspended last year
from an
Aloha high school after being caught with pot. Bakke said she
discouraged the
pot use, but Kim brushed off warnings by arguing that marijuana should
be
legalized.
Kim decided not to return to school after her suspension and enrolled in
correspondence classes. She maintained a B-minus average, her mother
said.
Bakke, who works at a local hospital, said she was concerned about how
her
daughter spent her free time. But Kim assured her she was OK. After her
studies, Kim rode the bus to see friends, shopped for beads and other
trinkets,
and read New Age books.
Kim told her mother she wanted to go into alternative medicine. A
brochure
about Portland Community College lay on the family's coffee table this
week as
a testimony to the girl's plans.
Bakke, meanwhile, is left agonizing about whether she could have saved
her
daughter.
At one point during the drive last weekend, Bakke said Kim spotted a
Kaiser
Permanente clinic and said, "Mom, that's the exit."
"I was just about to turn, and then I thought I should first call the
advice
nurse from home," Bakke said, "and see if that was the right place to
take her
(for drug treatment).
"Oh, if I could only have that one second back right now. That one
second to
make that turn, and maybe she would still be here."