The Ripple Effect of Death in a Hotel | Hacker News Reader

The Ripple Effect of Death in a Hotel

lithub.com

116 pointscrunchiebones91 comments

...For this reason, most Las Vegas hotel rooms have neither balconies nor windows that open more than the inch or two that will permit the minimum required ventilation.

This actually isn't true. The Cosmopolitan, right in the middle of the strip, is famous for the balconies on most of its 3,000 guest rooms and suites. There have been suicides and even drunken falls from Cosmopolitan balconies, but they have been relatively rare. Palms Place also has balconies on almost all of its rooms, as do a large percentage of the rooms at the Signature at MGM Grand. Others include the Grand Lakeview suites at Bellagio, the Skyline Terrace suites at MGM Grand, and the Sky Villas at the Palms. Finally, the hallways of almost all floors of the Luxor pyramid look down on the inside of the building, and could easily be jumped from. They have also had jumpers, but those have been rare.

How do you know so much about Las Vegas hotels?

Wild guess: they've visited them.

Another wild guess: their profession places them in a lot of hotels, either as a guest or for work.

It wasn't a facetious question.

Yes, I travel alot (especially to Vegas, mostly for business) and over the years have stayed in most of the room/suites I mentioned.

I stayed at the Cosmopolitan in a room with a soaking tub overlooking the fountains at the Bellagio.

Tell you what if I was thinking of ending it that would be a great way to change my mind. Pretty damn relaxing.

Out of curiosity do you know approximately how much they run? I spent a summer in a large city once where I had a balcony overlooking downtown, and it was very nice/relaxing to have a morning coffee or evening tea out there. I imagine it would be especially nice on a Vegas night with all that neon.

Casomopolitan is probably the best hotel experience in Las Vegas because of the balconies. Pricing varies wildly depending on what type of room/suite you want and the time of year, but rooms with balconies can often be had for less than $200/nt. Be warned that there are some rooms there that do not have a balcony. The room types of all those that have balconies have “terrace” in the name - if the room type you book doesn’t have that in the name, it doesn’t have a terrace (unless you book a penthouse). Cosmo is also pretty much the dead center of the strip, with Bellagio to one side and Aria to the other.

You can view all the room types and book here: https://www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/resort/rooms-suites . I prefer the wraparound terrace suites w/Bellagio fountain view, because they are large (1200sq ft, with a balcony that wraps around the side of the building - nearly 500 sq ft of balcony space) and have perhaps the most striking view in all of Las Vegas, but they are often ~$500+/nt (though sometimes as low as $350). Well worth it IMO, especially if you can write off the expense.

Thanks for the tip. I would be paying out of pocket, so I want to keep it to ~250 (effectively 200 + resort fee). Might be out of my price range. Also they're not part of Caesars OR MGM IIRC? I want to try to stay with 1 to build comps.

Sadly, they are not part of the MGM or Caesars system. But they do have a link with Marriott’s rewards program, so you’ll earn points with Marriott. Also, Cosmo is fairly generous in terms of comped room offers, even for people that give them very little play. Make sure you sign up with their player’s club as soon as you get there and attach your card number to your room so you get credit for your full trip spend, not just your casino play. Charge all your meals etc to your room to get points for those as well. After a trip or two, they’ll usually give you a few free nights.

Unfortunately for hotel owners, suicidal guests—since they know they will not be paying their bill—tend to choose large and luxurious rooms for their last night on earth.

I'm quite open about my struggles with being suicidal due to overwhelming personal problems. I find myself rather appalled to read the above. I cannot fathom intentionally and completely gratuitously dumping on other people like that as my final act.

I have every sympathy for "I don't want to suffer anymore. Let me out of this miserable life that seems like it can't possibly ever get any better."

I have no sympathy for "And, on my way out, let me actively fuck over other people who are innocent bystanders that have nothing to do with why I'm suicidal."

I say this as someone who used to have really dramatic fantasies (in my teens) of using my suicide as a final message to the world concerning why I was saying "Goodbye, cruel world!"

Someone once told me that suicide is the most selfish act, as it pushes your suffering on others. Is it really more selfish to get a bigger room?

I generally hate the messaging that suicide is a selfish act. The implication there is that you are obligated to suffer so others can be more comfortable. In many cases, people are suicidal in part because "Hell is other people."

Nonetheless, I stand by my above comment that I cannot fathom gratuitously pissing on random strangers in the process of saying "I've had enough and I'm out of here."

Tangentially related documentary on what happens when those with no next of kin die: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErooOhzE268.

I was intrigued by an article's title mentioned in this link: "How to properly respond to a guest death in your hotel". I found the article. Unfortunately, it's without any paragraph breaks, but should still be readable.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-properly-respond-guest-de...

Here it is with paragraph breaks but as a PDF: http://hospitalitylawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/Responding-t...

It's both sad and frustrating that an entire industry treats suicide as merely a cost of doing business. That these statistics are hidden from the public is also a shame.

Instead we prefer to sweep away the deaths of people because it's bad for business. Because it's gruesome and the reality is too much to bear.

I'm curious how you think the industry should be treating suicide? I'm not sure if the hotel of death is the right way to go about things, and checking up on every guest from in-town to see if they are going to kill themselves doesn't seem very practical.

> Instead we prefer to sweep away the deaths of people because it's bad for business. Because it's gruesome and the reality is too much to bear.

I assume the "we" here refers to society? If so, I don't really see the issue of not announcing to everyone that there is a dead guy here and parading them around or something.

The issues behind suicide are quite complex and even if we are talking about suicide driven by a disconnection from all aspects of society, i don't see how hotels can even hope to help fix this problem.

I find people need someone to blame for things. It makes the world seem more manageable. It’s not really a rational reaction to the situation.

There are some quick easy things hotels can do.

They can sell only small quantities of medication commonly used in suicide attempts.

They can make it harder to access the rooftop of buildings.

They can put small signs giving contact details for a suicide prevention organisation in key places.

These aren't going to end suicide, but they do help reduce the numbers.

They do already, even without any goodwill, a suicide costs north of a few thousand, so it makes sense to try to reduce them.

In general, it's not the hotels' fault that guests commit suicide.

Maybe Las Vegas hotels which are also casinos deserve some scorn, however.

I was in Vegas last month for work & a woman was wailing in an adjacent room from 3am until I left around 6:30am. It was unsettling, to say the least. I could only imagine what events led up to her crisis & what fallout followed. It made for a sobering day of contemplation... I struggled w/ gamblig addiction in my youth. Coincidentally, I was asked no less than 5xs that day if I had bought my billion dollar lottery ticket... nobody cared for my response; "You can't lose if you don't play."

On topic, sorta: does anyone know the comedian who's skit is about a follow up phone call from management(police?) concerning a murder in an adjacent room she was staying in? Heard the skit on the radio a few months back and have wonderwd/searched for her name to no avail.

People want to kill themselves, very hard to stop. If not hotels, they'll choose another way. As for hotels: You pay $250 for the room and do NOT want nosy employees asking or watching you carefully, 99+% just want to stay there and be left alone, unless they call you.

While it's basically impossible to stop a person that is really really determined to kill themselves, many suicides can be prevented by making the means less available. For example, reducing the package size of paracetamol and requiring blister packaging instead of bottles reduced the number of suicides in Britain: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/a-simple-wa...

You can still walk into as many pharmacies and buy as many tablets as you want in total, so in theory this shouldn't change anything. People still can - and do - kill themselves with tablets. In practice, it requires a much more premeditated plan which seems to hold off a substantial quantity of people.

The rational mind would see no difference between having to pop the pills out of the blisters individually or just having a tub of them.

A rational mind treats "I want to commit suicide" as a problem, and comes up with a myriad of solutions. It's not exactly hard to commit suicide in theory.

However people who commit suicide tend not to be thinking rationally, and it's amazing how small things can really help with reducing suicide.

Probably they want to kill themselves a certain second, but as climb the stairs, load the magazine or start unwrapping the Tylenols they change their minds.

(The mind is fickle like that, different people handle life issues differently so I pass no judgment. Personally, I think suicide is somewhat selfish, unless your children, parents /those dependent on you are cared for. But even with material things, they need the person in their life.)

That’s like saying that cancer is somewhat selfish. Don’t metastasize, your family needs you! Mental illness is a disease too.

Maybe at some point they may loose their free will, but that opens the Pandora's box...

With cancer you are never asked of you want it to kill you, the "cells" by itself decide.

I don’t think “free will” is a coherent concept. I’ve never seen a definition that actually makes sense.

There is no “you” besides the cells. Fundamentally, there’s no qualitative difference between some brain cells “deciding” to start replicating without limit, and some brain cells deciding to to swallow a lot of pills.

Does that mean there's no difference between a thinking mass of neurons asking you to remove the brain tumor, vs. the tumor that only expresses "grow"? If you would help that person remove the tumor, you're exposing a qualitative difference between the thinky bits and the not-thinky bits. If you wouldn't, then you're absolutely ridiculous.

That qualitative difference comes down to “disease.” I’m not sufficiently well versed in medical philosophy to give a good definition of that, but I know the distinction exists and is useful.

Suicidal tendencies are also disease. If you could identify the cells responsible and the person asked you to remove them, would you? How is that different from a tumor? (And for more fun, consider the cases where a tumor is causing suicidal impulses.)

I really dislike this "suicide is the most selfish thing", but I came to appreciate it for what it is - a meme. One of few of this kind society uses to discourage suicides. Others like that include pretty much every religion I've heard of making suicide a grave sin that will prevent you from reaching the desired afterlife.

I remember reading about a man who survived a suicide attempt jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. He felt overwhelmed with intractable problems and so he jumped. He immediately realized that all of the problems in his life could be dealt with... except for the fact that he was plummeting to his doom.

The idea that suicidal people will figure out a way no matter what is just ignorant of human nature. If you make something more difficult, people do it less.

I was commenting on hotels. I want to rest at the hotel, I don't want a hotel psychologist to ask me questions, research me or whatever, just because some may commit suicide.

I wonder what the probability is for a Vegas hotel room that there's been a suicide in it.

I’ve thought of going to Vegas and playing everything on red and proceed with suicide. I think it would be epic but would prefer a suicide that is more humane. People should just allow suicide by administration from a machine in a hospital. What society does now for people that suffer is so irrational, I might as well go to a church and be told to pray for things to get better because that is exactly what mental health professionals do with some drugs thrown in to distort reality. People that want suicide are rational and suffer from a reality that doesn’t favor them.

> People should just allow suicide by administration from a machine in a hospital

The concept of a suicide is hardly new - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_booth

Your reply is fascinating. Are you really trying one-up someone who is hinting heavily at their own desire for suicide?

I'm sorry that you're in pain.

If you are considering suicide, please don't do it. Many people want to help you.

If you're in the US, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255, 24/7. It probably works from outside the US too.

Does anybody else find this kind of response patronizing? The parent said nothing about being in pain. The parent posted a completely rational statement. Here someone comes along trying to sound as though there is some moral or intellectual superiority to the opposite action and that this person needs help of some kind.

Perhaps we would have more humane suicide options if society were to stop regarding suicide as some kind of dysfunctional behavior. There are plenty of rational reasons to commit suicide, and there are plenty of cases where not committing suicide seems rather irrational.

> Does anybody else find this kind of response patronizing?

No. "compassionate" is the description I would use.

> The parent said nothing about being in pain.

They repeatedly used the word "suffering".

> The parent posted a completely rational statement.

Not really, no.

> Here someone comes along trying to sound as though there is some moral or intellectual superiority to the opposite action

There is.

> and that this person needs help of some kind.

They do.

> Perhaps we would have more humane suicide options if society were to stop regarding suicide as some kind of dysfunctional behavior.

But in the majority of cases, it is a dysfunctional behavior.

> There are plenty of rational reasons to commit suicide,

Very few, really.

> and there are plenty of cases where not committing suicide seems rather irrational.

The absolute number may be large, but a tiny fraction of the number of people who consider suicide for irrational reasons.

As you’ve already conceded that there are few but existing rational reasons to commit suicide, the next question is who gets to decide what reason is rational and what gives them the right to decide that for someone else?

That is indeed a difficult question. I doubt a perfect answer is possible. Existing suicide-assisting organizations e.g. in Switzerland typically rely on individual assessments based on extended dialogue with the person wishing assistance and their doctor.

We could start with "Do at least 1/3 of the population think it's justified?" I believe that puts depression on the "no" side and painful terminal illness on the "yes" side with extremely large margins. Work from there to refine the criteria.

The comment did not feel even slightly "compassionate": it felt like a cold, dispassionate template, the kind of thing read off by someone who knew they should care but didn't _really_, followed by a phone number.

Part of what makes it so _not_ compasssionate is how "lazy" the thought is; FWIW, so far _no one_ in this discussion of this issue has mentioned the OP's website: there is essentially a suicide note on it right now, claiming they have already died. The attached blog is all about suicide, and goes into their issue.

They have a protected Twitter account, a deleted Facebook, apparently Google+ (is that still a thing?), LinkedIn, GitHub, and Instagram... I have sent a message via Instagram (but the account is empty, so maybe entirely unused and abandoned).

Do you mean the website of Mikita Brottman, the author of the attached article? I viewed her website and I didn't see the suicide note. Can you link please?

No: the person whose comment started this thread, the comment with the suicidal fringe to it which caused someone else to leave the "call this hotline" comment which then led to the argument that led to my comment.

https://intralizee.com/

Note: the person did not respond to me on Instagram.

Compassionate? It reads like an automated message that scans for suicide related words and posts a generic text with the hotline number.

I honestly don't see it. From where I stand, he's trying to provide useful information to someone who one can (very reasonably) assume might be of help. First sentence doesn't have to be correct, but can't hurt to empathize first.

> Does anybody else find this kind of response patronizing?

Yes, though not at all for the reasons you stated. The canned suicide hotline/cheery bullshit/"you can talk to me if you're sad!1!" is absolutely awful, and not usually what a depressed person talking about their depression on the internet needs to hear. It shuts down the conversation in a way that no one can reasonably argue with, and gets the well meaning asshole who copy pasted a few phone numbers into a text box a bunch of internet points, and little else.

It's true that this sort of direct approach is likely ineffective for many depressed people, but it is also unlikely particularly detrimental.

As someone who has fixated on and attempted suicide in the past, I now feel like that decision would have been a grave mistake. So I am glad things like the Suicide Prevention Hotline exist and are advertised by smug internet assholes because I think they do help some of the people who may be blundering into a bad decision.

I've heard horror stories. Hotlines being required by the US to call emergency services on mention of suicide, which leads to forceful loss of freedom and medical and ambulance bills that put the caller in a spiral of debt.

which leads to forceful loss of freedom and medical and ambulance bills that put the caller in a spiral of debt.

This is beyond disgusting. Who comes up with these stupid laws? Take freedom and money from someone already depressed? WTF

What is the best way to respond/try to help?

Spot on. I don't believe anyone who claims not to have contemplated suicide; it's everpresent in the news and entertainment. It always has been, too. If anything, not having thought through some of those eventualities is short-sighted.

What's the option for people that dislike talking on the phone or are deaf?

Seems like a growing minority of people these days might prefer a chat app over a phone call.

The Suicide Prevention Helpline has a TTY number: 1-800-799-4TTY

There’s also a chat on their website: http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineCh...

There’s more info about it here: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/faq/

I found a number of suicide prevention text numbers but I can’t vouch for any.

What exactly does a suicide hotline do? Call the ambulance the moment you mention suicide and charge you for it?

Mostly they listen and try to provide an outlet, offer coping skills, suggest places to turn for help.

And yes, some services will call an ambulance if they think you're in imminent danger. Others don't.

This comment is a negative contribution to the discussion.

> This comment is a negative contribution to the discussion.

You think giving parent resources for help is "a negative contribution to the discussion"? Wow. Don't let your clinical word choice fool you, that's an incredibly toxic response.

> giving parent resources

While xfitm3 was being rude, do you honestly think the OP was unaware of suicide hotlines?

>While xfitm3 was being rude, do you honestly think the OP was unaware of suicide hotlines?

Do you think the parent was informing of their existence, or reminding a poster who may need a nudge in stressed state of mind?

It seemed like a nudge to me. Which in a context like this is not so obviously beneficial as giving resources.

And what if your comment has the opposite effect, motivating people toward suicide?

> What society does now for people that suffer is so irrational

What would you do with someone that suffers from e.g. a broken leg?

If they are young or if they are old and fragile? After certain age and health combo getting bedridden is a slow death sentence. The concept of coup de grace is not new. We may argue where it is applicable, but I think it has place in our society. Life is a game, so a person should be able to quit on their terms.

The problem is that in most cases the feeling of wanting to quit is the illness itself.

It's different for very old people or people with very bad illnesses though.

What if the broken leg cannot be repaired and no pain meds are effective? Suffer! :P

> People should just allow suicide by administration from a machine in a hospital.

Very bad idea.

> People that want suicide are rational and suffer from a reality that doesn’t favor them.

That is provably not true in all (probably most) cases.

Apart from the fact that for very many people, suicidal thoughs and actions are transient, leaving them very happy that it was not easy to follow through to completion, there is the matter of moral hazard: situations where people who would profit from someone's death could reinforce or even induce suicidal thoughs in that person.

maybe not in all, but it's true in many cases.

I do consider myself of sound mind (but what do I know am I a doctor? /s) and am at least currently happy. But I do never want to die in pointlessly extended agony, unable to think because the painkillers of my disease are fogging my mind like a bad dream. Or withering away in an old peoples home because the kids are living in far away countries.

Not everyone buys the idea that everything will be better tomorrow. It should be up to the individual to decide how they go. In my case I see only 2 options: a sudden unforeseen death or suicide at a point of time and place and method in which I deem appropriate.

Nobody should tell others how they are allowed to go. And since I had no control over how I came into this world at least there is with some luck the possibility of me going out under my terms. Not sure how somebody would want to deny that right, or automatically label suicidal people as depressed or mentally unstable.

Optimists will simply never learn. It's another form of extremist or elitist thinking. We were conditioned to always be optimistic 24/7 (nobody openly pessimistic will pass a job interview, and if they do they won't have friends at work). That conditioning is passed on to kids, because without that skill they will either grow up writing philosophy books for a fringe genre or end up homeless.

In my experience optimism isn't something that leads to long term happiness. Not unless a strong dose of cognitive dissonance is already present allowing the individual to disengage with the fact that we are killing the planet that supports us. Tomorrow won't be better than today, that is just an illusion.

For anyone not afraid to explore dark subjects I highly recommend Nethescurial by horror writer Thomas Ligotti (this is his only philosophical non-fiction work).

> Nobody should tell others how they are allowed to go.

Ever? Does that apply to something like seatbelt laws too?

It should. I don’t want laws to protect me from myself.

if one decides to crash into the far end wall in a car park, when nobody else is around to get hurt, then why not?

impacting other lives with your death is not responsible and something I would relate to mental problems. Also leaving yourself to be found by friends, family or splattering yourself in a public place, or risking that a jogger finds you, are reckless and ignorant acts. it has nothing to do with exercising your rights over your live/death, when that impact others, does it?

There is also the question of how your suicide affects your environment. Who will you leave behind and how are they going to take it. Will you simply disappear hiking, or fishing, and no body will ever be discovered? Or will they find you in a hotel and there is a good-bye note. Will you need a note if everyone knows how you intend to go one day or will you keep it a secret until the end. A lot of moral dilemmas in every corner. But unless death comes quickly and unexpectedly in another way there are potentially 20-50 years (depending on age) to come up with a grand plan that uniquely fits to the a persons situation.

> But I do never want to die in pointlessly extended agony, unable to think because the painkillers of my disease are fogging my mind like a bad dream.

Yes, that is the case where you can get pretty broad consensus that suicide should be an available opion.

> Or withering away in an old peoples home because the kids are living in far away countries.

I don't think you can really assess how you would actually feel in such a situation.

> Not sure how somebody would want to deny that right, or automatically label suicidal people as depressed or mentally unstable.

Because, as I wrote before, the vast majority of suicidal thoughts and actions are not based on objectively bad and unescapable circumstances.

> Optimists will simply never learn. It's another form of extremist or elitist thinking.

Exactly the same can be said about pessimism. It's a lazy way to avoid responsibility for your own life and at the same time cultivate an empty feeling of superiority.

Replace the machine with reasonable, assisted suicide and there is actually a fair chance that it can relieve some people from alot of pain while preventing abuse.

For example there is a swiss organisation called "Exit" [1] which operates in this manner.

[1] https://www.exit.ch/en/en/faq/

>That is provably not true in all (probably most) cases.

There are plenty of counterexamples: People who suffer from a condition which causes substantial chronic pain, those who wish to time their passing in order to minimize financial harm to their family, etc.

I was not making a general statement, the person I was replying to was, so "counterexamples" are relevant to their comment, not mine.

Just watched "The Sea Inside" - a true story. It makes the case for suicide in a very moving manner. I believe that for anyone who stops to think about it, it is clear that there are other situations where there is suffering, and quite often there is no viable solution. Those who claim that there are always options better than death are naive (or intentionally harming others). I'm always amazed by the arguments they think up to defend their philosophical position.

People in this thread keep talking about suffering. I would like to disambiguate: suffering is not pain. Suffering is focusing on the pain and assuming that we should not have pain (and being lost in the idea that they should somehow be free of how they feel).

There is a lot of stuff about mental resiliency (and what to do with chronic pain - emotional and physical) that talks about how to deal with pain.

> quite often there is no viable solution.

There might not be a 'solution' to removing pain. Pain is a fact of life. Its what we do with it that matters.

[edit] More text. [/edit]

suffering is not pain. Suffering is focusing on the pain ...Pain is a fact of life. Its what we do with it that matters.

This is the major insight of Buddhism, I think; that's not a bad summary of the Four Noble Truths.

Nobody should be in chronic pain. Please do not conflate instances of pain with chronic pain.

I don't intend to be indifferent, but no one deserves anything. Not pain, not freedom from pain. This sort of entitlement is what leads to suffering.

A community or individual may hold values which include freedom from pain as an entitlement. Please don't impose pseudo-Buddhist misinterpretations on others.

I don't aim to impose, only address human existence ~and~ as it seems. Which includes pain.

> People should just allow suicide by administration from a machine in a hospital.

That’s gonna be a no for me.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/25/dutch-doctor-rep...

The incentives are too perverse.

The doctor in this case was cleared of any wrongdoing. Which is pretty scary, honestly.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/28/panel-clears-dut...

I've been there.

Suicidal thoughts are the brain's malware. They are not your fault.

The only thing you can do is hang on for dear life and consciously decline every time your mind asks you to end it.

Don't give up. Keep fighting it.

It takes a lot of time and effort. That's okay. It's one of life's greatest challenges.

Not all people that want suicide are rational, but some of them are, for sure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com