Teenager jumps from hospital's fifth-floor

Teenager jumps from hospital's fifth-floor

JAKARTA (JP): An 18-year-old man, suspected to have been under
the influence of drugs, jumped to his death from the fifth floor
of the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital at midnight on
Tuesday, friends said on Wednesday.

The victim, Martin, from the Cililitan area, East Jakarta,
ended his life after saying goodbye to his mother, Sarinah, who
is being treated on the hospital's fifth floor for acute
diabetes. He promised her he would return the next day.

Martin, a second-grader at a technical vocational high school
in East Jakarta, was found lying supine on the roof of the ground
floor bathroom -- a 15 meters drop from the fifth floor -- with a
cracked skull and a foaming mouth.

A frequent visitor to him at hospital, Sano from Jl.
Percetakan Negara, Central Jakarta, said at the scene Martin had
told him he was suffering from stress.

"He wrote his feelings in English so I could not understand
their meaning. Perhaps it was because of his father, who was very
demanding."

Another visitor, Dani, said Martin had been sentenced to three
months in Pondok Bambu prison for a drug related crime. He was
released in August.

"He had been staggering drunk for the last three days. He said
last Friday he had been forced by his friends to take ten ecstasy
pills and drink liquor," Dani said.

"They were friends from prison," Dani said, adding that last
Sunday Martin was brought by police to the hospital's emergency
unit after being found lying unconscious in the National Monument
(Monas) park in Central Jakarta.

"Later he confessed that he had taken an excessive amount of
drugs at that time, but refused to be treated at the hospital. He
didn't want his mother to find out," Dani said.

He said he and Martin had recently become friends after
frequent chatting while visiting patients. "He had told me a lot
of things about his life."

Dani said Martin's father Petrus, a security officer, left his
mother and four brothers and sisters soon after she was treated
at the hospital for the first time a few years ago.

"His sister, Yuli, once told me that Martin cut his hand after
quarreling with their father. It's clear that Martin was a victim
of a broken home," he said.

Martin had written notes on the walls of the hospital and on
pieces of paper, saying he wanted to be released from life.

"An angel of death has called me," one such note said.

They also mentioned his hopeless love to a girl named Maureen.
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