Surveillance footage unveils tragedy of Chengdu boy's death

The death of a 16-year-old student at a high school in southwest China’s Sichuan Province has touched Chinese Internet users’ hearts in recent days. Surveillance video released by the local police station and broadcast by China Central Television showed his last moves in the school that day, Xinhua reported.

The boy surnamed Lin, from the 49th High School of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, fell to his death on campus on Sunday.

The video spans from 18:16 to 18:49:28, and in it, Lin is seen walking out of his classroom and going to the place where he jumped. Between 18:39 to 18:49, Lin is seen climbing to a platform, where usually no one goes and where there is no surveillance video.

According to local police, during the investigation, there were no traces of other people at the scene, neither footprints nor fingerprints. Only the boy’s traces were found. An autopsy showed the boy’s injuries were consistent with death from a high fall, and there were no suspicious substances found on his blood.

The police said they found a note written to a girl when searching Lin’s belongings. Meanwhile, based on chatting records between Lin and his friends on the social media app QQ, police found the boy showed a lack of self-esteem and self-worth. The death has raised questions related to the high school and how it dealt with student’s mental health, being suggested that there are shortcomings in this area.

Since Sunday, the boy’s death has become one of the most searched topics on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo, following questions over an initial investigation that suggested he had taken his own life without providing any details, including video footage or the reasons behind the tragedy.

This is not the first time a case like this has happened in China. There have been reports of students’ suicide and self-harm in recent years, raising an urgency for schools to enhance strategies to deal with students’ mental state and guarantee their mental health.

“At present, there is commonly a lack of mental health education faculty at primary and middle schools in China, let alone the poor education quality,” said Deng Hong, a doctor with mental health center at West China Hospital of Sichuan University.

It’s time for families, schools, and society to pay attention to teenagers’ mental health and accelerate efforts on developing mental health education in schools, said Deng.