That a 22-year-old man survived a 39-floor fall after apparently attempting to end his life last week on the Upper West Side is remarkable. That he chose to jump off a high-rise building as his method of suicide isn't.

The percentage of suicides by jumping in New York City is far higher than the national average, statistics show. And for years leaping off tall buildings and bridges has been one of the most common ways that people in New York City commit suicide, according to city Department of Health data, behind only "hanging, strangulation or suffocation."

Suicide experts say the reason is quite simple: Despondent people use whatever method presents itself, and in a city of skyscrapers, that all-too-often means jumping.

"Access to lethal means, we know, is one of the risk factors for suicides," said Ann Haas, the director of suicide-prevention projects for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. "So certainly in an urban area like New York, there's access to lethal means every time you walk into a building."

Of the 473 people who committed suicide in the city in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 93, just under 20%, did so by leaping to their deaths.

Over the eight years prior to that, the percentage of jumper suicides in the city was even higher at 23%. Nationally the percentage of the total suicide victims who jump to their deaths during that time was only about 2%.

The West End Towers at 75 West End Avenue. On August 31, Thomas Magill from Staten Island allegedly jumped from the thirty-ninth floor and survived after landing on a car. LANDOV

The statistics show that "jumping from high place" has been the second most used method of suicide dating back to 1997.

And between 1976 (the first year that such statistics were published) and 1991, jumping deaths were actually the No. 1 way people committed suicide in the city. During this period, jumper suicides reached a high in 1980 of 239. Between 1976 and 2008, more than 5,000 people have leapt to their deaths, the statistics show.

In fact, according to statistics from from city health officials and the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, more than one out of seven jumper suicides nationally between 1999 and 2007 (the most distant and recent years that national data is available) happened in New York City.

Ms. Haas said that in the rest of the country deaths by gun account for about 53% of all suicides. Here suicide by guns has ranked third or fourth over the years, switching positions with overdosing on medicines or other "toxic substances."

Since New York has less handguns and rifles per capita than other parts of the country, she said, people bent on suicide in the city find other means, often jumping.

Still, New York City's suicide rate is about half that of the rest of the country's rate, said Christine Coyle, a research scientist with the Department of Health.

The majority of all suicides in the city are committed by white people. The largest age group for those who commit suicide are people 45 to 54 years and almost a quarter of the city's suicides over the past nine years have occurred in Manhattan, the statistics show. Nearly one in 10 suicides in New York City during that time, however was committed by a non-city resident. Of the suicidal visitors 35% chose to jump off high places to kill themselves, according to statistics.

Ms. Haas said national statistics show that women are about three times more likely to attempt suicide as men. But men complete suicides at a four to one ratio to women. That rate also applies to New York City where between 2000 and 2008, about 74% of the suicide victims were men, statistics show.

The reason for this, Ms. Haas said, is because statistics show women favor drug overdoses as the way to try to kill themselves, a method that allows a greater opportunity for them to be saved.

Men are more likely to use a gun, hanging or jumping which, she said, are "highly lethal methods...The survival rate on these more lethal suicide attempts are miniscule."

That's why Thomas Magill surviving a nearly 400-foot plunge on Aug. 31 is against all the odds.

Authorities said that it appears Mr. Magill, a recent Fordham University graduate and aspiring actor, entered a 39-floor apartment in the West End Towers at 75 West End Avenue near West 63rd Street and jumped off a balcony.

Mr. Magill landed, feet first, and crashed through the rear window of a parked Dodge Charger. Mr. Magill, who suffered two broken legs and other broken bones, has undergone several surgeries over the past several days but was listed in serious but stable condition at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, according to hospital officials.

Attempts to contact Mr. Magill's family were unsuccessful.

Ms. Haas said that some research shows that the period of time that people are feeling "suicidal with high intent to die is fairly time-limited." She said and during that period access to a means of suicide can literally be the difference between life and death.

She said that's why there is belief that by "focusing on access to suicide means where it can be controlled," using fencing and suicide barriers on bridges and skyscrapers, can prevent some suicides. However, she also noted that "we understand there's a limit to what can be done" to prevent someone from jumping off a tall building or bridge.

"High places are very difficult to control," she said.

Write to Sean Gardiner at