This means that someone jumped, the family sued, and your local nonprofit hospital had to spend money it didn't have.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
292 points (99.7% liked)
Mildly Interesting
26079 readers
502 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Very american point of view. My first thought was "oh dam, someone in a disturbed mental state (tbh I thought suicidal) attempted to jump/jumped and the hospital wants to make sure no one else hurts themselves that way! That's good care!" But we can also look through the extremely negative POV of no one does anything good ever unless there's money on the line, right?
My inner-child wanna play tag there.
Unfortunately it's necessary in a place where people regularly receive life changing or ending news.
Or medical bills.
Location is in Germany.
So maximum hospital bill for someone with standard insurance is 10€ per day.
Wouldn't jump because of that...
In Amerikkka, they'll bill your family for cleaning you off the floor.
It's the first hospital where I've seen something like this, though.
I can just guess that there must have been some kind of incident at that place that triggered the installation of the safety nets.
My local hospital handles this by being only one story tall.
Sure and the incident was a suicide, no question about it.
Former girlfriend of mine had a patient jump out of a window after his late stage cancer diagnose.
Thats why assisted death/suicide should be more legalized and talked about. I mean in such a case, the case is pretty simple. In such a case, they need a second doctor from outside to confirm the diagnosis, get a notary or some kind to confirm that this is the wish of the patient and they got all the necessary information. I guess in a week they should have the clearance.
This way someone can leave the world on their terms, without pain or traumatizing or hurting bystanders.
Speedrunning an established legal precedent for nonvoluntary eugenics in the process
My suggestion is always "suicide clinics", where you can just walk in. That sounds absolutely horrid, but the point is to catch the people that can be saved by intervention. They take you in, and talk with you, go through medical history, then you have to wait some hours etc. and all that. And if you still wish to die and you're not diagnosed with having some sort of episode, they just let you swallow some pills and then you get to lay on a bed and die.
That'd be way more efficient than just letting people jump from the rooftops and on the train tracks, would save people, would traumatize less people, would cause less suffering; would overall improve the situation. Of course that could be misused, and it would not catch all people. But I'd definitely prioritize getting less people splatter on the sidewalk anyway
At least something that is legal and that you can be sure that this is the persons will.
What I found weird is that in Germany until 4 years ago "ads" for an abortion was illegal but abortion itself is legal. Under ads it even counted when a doctor posted on their website, that they do abortions. They than changed that law and revoked any conviction until 1990.
Overall when I think how recent some laws changed and what was normal back when I was born or when my parents where born.
I mean, I can understand it from the guy.. half a year of dying in a bed? Or right the fuck now? Who knows how much pain he was currently in.
Wow, my brain had a tough time processing that image. Turn it about 20 degrees counter clockwise and it looked like a hallway with several red carts with netting blocking the way. I literally thought the morgue was at the other end.
The other shots I did are even more confusing, I picked the one that seemed to be the most comprehensible...
It was either that or putting in a drain, adding a hose connection, and waterproofing the splash zone.
This seems awfully not stretchy...
It's not a safety net, it's a sieve
Judging by the size of the holes it’s a filter for newborns.
Spoiler
I’m definitely going to hell for that one.
[The Price Is Right music, excited contestent]
Let's play Plinko!
With one every floor and that sharp angle, I was thinking more cheese grater. No time to get the velocity to go through it but enough momentum to slide across it
If you jump the railing, you're at the lowest part of the slope.
Wouldn't that depend on which railing you jumped.
No.
Yes
Every railing except the stairs is the bottom of a slope, the stairs are the side.
I'd like to persist in my childish back and forth games but apparently I've been betrayed by my early morning attention to detail
Maximum drop distance at any point is less than 2m.
You will survive...
I think building an elevator there is a better option.
Naturally there are also several elevators at the place.
But you must have other routes for exit that are easily available in the case of an emergency.
Also many people aren't especially fond of elevators (me included).
The stairway stays. The elevator could be built in the "hole"
Elevators need a decent amount of surrounding space for cabling and for the counterweight. That all needs to be completely touch-proofed so people don't lose hands.
The running rails etc. also have structural rigidity requirements. Bolting straight onto concrete slab works best and there's not enough concrete here.
Fire stairwells often can't have anything put on them that could risk starting a fire, elevators included.
I'm no elevatorologist so soneone can correct me, but don't elevators need a lot of surrounding machinery in order to operate? Like, there needs to be weights and pulleys and all that. I image there would not be enough room for both that and the stairs.
l am surprised that the hospital, being halfway closed because of non-profitability anyway, had enough funds left somewhere to even install the nets.
A new elevator would probably have cost more than the whole building complex is worth by now...
non-profitability
Ugh. I hate how that idea has worked its way into the collective consciousness.
Healthcare is one of the cases where the market can’t work even in theory. There’s no upper limit to what people will spend, as a percentage of their net worth, to keep a child alive.
It shouldn’t even be a conversation. Just “nope, hospitals cannot be profitable, they are a social good, we fund them as a society” end of fucking discussion.
hospitals cannot be profitable, they are a social good, we fund them as a society
l live in Germany, a country with universal healthcare, so basically we do exactly that.
So perhaps "profitability" is the wrong word here.
But funds are still limited, and if the authorities determine that the money is used less efficient in one place than in another, they will consolidate and close the first place (that's happening for the hospital in the picture).
We have reached, or even passed the limits of that aproach, though.
Doctors and hospitals have to be realistically reachable for people and not a 100km away after all...