Michael Rudd Simpson
PORTLAND -- Michael Rudd Simpson, 37, son of Paul and Leigh Builter of Ridgefield, Conn., died on Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010, in Portland.
Michael loved the sea and attended Massachusetts Maritime Academy before taking various jobs in the maritime industry. He lived in Portland for some 10 years and enjoyed walking the streets and talking to his friends. Michael was also a published author and submitted articles to maritime publications about his adventures at sea.
He grew up in New York and Connecticut. Having attended The Browning School in New York City as a young boy, he went on to graduate from Greenwich Country Day and Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Conn.
He was a loved son, brother and uncle and is survived by his parents; brother Jason, sister Amanda; and niece Ashley. He will be missed dearly.
A memorial visitation will be held on Monday, Nov. 1, 2010, from 6-7 p.m. at Jones, Rich & Hutchins Funeral Home, 199 Woodford St., Portland. A memorial service will follow at the funeral home at 7 p.m. Michael's family invites all his friends to stop by.
I met him on the docks in Portland. He was a big kid, 6'2", thin, yet muscular; muscles built from many years working the waterfront. In truth, he was no kid, in his mid 30s, but he acted younger. Perhaps the decade of heavy drug and alcohol use had stunted his maturity.
He was dressed in dirty orange "skins" and long blue neoprene gloves, the uniform of the bait shop, and he smelled like a bucket of 3 day old herring set in the hot sun. We worked together on the wharf rigging and winching 400 pound barrels of lobster bait down to the boats. He seemed competent, but a little off... squirrelly. It was clearly time for another fix.
One morning as we took our coffee break, we talked. He was from New York and had attended the Massachusetts Maritime College for a time. He didn't elaborate on why he had not finished the program. Heroin probably had something to do with it. Now he lived at the YMCA and worked for Craig when he could. His other job was riding the city garbage truck, tossing trash. He preferred working around boats.
He grew quiet and we sat watching the gray fog run in over the bay mercifully camouflaging all sins, all broken dreams, all regrets. He finished his drink and tossed the cup into the ebbing tide. "I don't like whales," he mumbled more to himself than to anyone else. But I was sitting next to him so I asked, "Why not?"
"They think they're better than everybody else..." he offered.
Some days Simpson showed up. Other days he didn't. No one asked "Where's Mike?" It was just too complicated. Then one morning a police cruiser showed up at the shop. The crew scattered, hid in the coolers, peered around corners and waited for the story to unfold. Someone had broken into the bait shop office upstairs, climbed through the suspended ceiling and stolen some blank checks from the file cabinet; a clumsy, desperate crime. No one wanted to believe it was one of us, but Simpson disappearance and the string of forged checks led to his door. The crew's condemnation was quick and brutal. Judge, jury and execution, there was no mercy or attempt at understanding his disease. He was out.
Today, 2 years later, I wonder if this final ostracization was his last straw, the straw that broke his final hope, his loss of a final place of belonging.
It was the following summer that news came that Simpson was dead. The story was that he had tied a hangman's noose and walked into a hospital emergency room declaring that he was going to kill himself. They took the noose away and committed him to the locked ward on the 6th floor for observation. Several days later he was released and they gave him back his personal effects... including his rope.
Simpson walked up to the Eastern Promenade, to Fort Allen Park where all the high school kids used to snuggle in back seats on freezing cold January nights, windows fogged with passion and heavy breathing. Watching the submarine races, we used to call it. And there, overlooking Casco Bay and the ocean he so loved, he hung himself from the limb of a maple tree.
It's been almost two years, Mike. Just didn't want you to think we thought we were better than you. Just luckier.
Remembering you...
Portland Press Herald
Help for the suicidal falls short, chief says
Michael Simpson suffered from depression and anxiety and had attempted suicide at least twice.Last month, shortly after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital, the 37-year-old merchant mariner took his own life. He was found hanging in Portland's Fort Allen Park on Oct. 26.
Simpson's belongings included a note in which he said the rope he used was the same one he had bought for the task and had brought with him to Mercy Hospital on Oct. 23 when he checked himself in because he was feeling suicidal.
Simpson wrote that he told hospital staff what he intended to do with the rope. Mercy transferred him to Spring Harbor Hospital, which discharged him within two days. When he checked the bag that held his clothes, he found the rope still inside, his note said.
"Would you give a suicidal man back his shotgun?" he wrote.
The note was described in the police report on the incident. The report was obtained from the Portland Police Department under the Freedom of Access law.
Portland Police Chief James Craig said the tragedy underscores the need to improve the way the mental health system responds to people who are suicidal.
"I know we can't always predict when someone is going to commit suicide or cause harm to someone else, but when we have good knowledge, evidence of a problem, it would seem we should do more," he said.
Hospital officials, meanwhile, say they try their best to assess patients' risk of hurting themselves or others. Confidentiality laws bar them from talking about the specific factors relevant to Simpson's case, they said.
Craig acknowledged that mental health is not his profession and said he did not intend to criticize the doctors who treated Simpson. But he said the mechanism for responding to such people needs improvement.
"When he writes a letter expressing dissatisfaction with the system, I think the young man was sending all of us a message (that) the system is broken," Craig said.
POLICE RESPOND TO ATTEMPTS
Police had dealt with Simpson following a previous suicide attempt this summer. Officers were called to the Eastern Prom, where they found Simpson bleeding from a self-inflicted wound. He told the officer he had tried to kill himself by cutting his carotid artery with a box cutter, even doing pushups beforehand to make it more pronounced.
Craig's criticism of how suicidal people are often released back into the community stemmed originally from an incident a year ago. A woman who had been threatening to jump off Casco Bay Bridge almost caused an officer to fall as he was trying to grab her. She was taken to the hospital for evaluation, was released and was back at the bridge the following night, police said.
The hospitals referenced in Simpson's letter declined comment on the case specifically.
"If a patient is in need of acute psychiatric care," said Mercy spokeswoman Diane Atwood, "we make an evaluation and transfer the patient safely as soon as possible to an appropriate provider or facility."
