When Jake Collins left his family’s home on the morning of Jan. 19, 2024, he was barefoot, wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt, in the middle of a snowstorm.

He was 26 years old. He had schizophrenia. And weeks earlier, he had tried to get a psychiatric appointment — only to be told the next available slot was months away.

By late that afternoon, his body had been recovered from the Hudson River below the Walkway Over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. His mother, Sherry Collins, learned the news standing beside her Christmas tree.
“We just stood there holding each other,” she said.

Jake Collins’ death was not an isolated tragedy. According to data from the office of state Sen. Pete Harckham, publicly reported suicide-related incidents on Hudson Valley bridges have remained persistently high in recent years: 16 incidents in 2022, 14 in 2024, and at least four deaths already recorded in 2025.

Those numbers have intensified calls for physical deterrent barriers on bridges across the region, along with expanded access to mental health services — changes Sherry Collins is now publicly advocating for in her son’s name.

“If people understand how serious this is, how fast it can happen, maybe we can save someone else,” she said.

A quiet, steady young man
Jake Collins grew up in Wallkill, the middle of three children in what his mother described as a close-knit family. He was an honor society student and a four-year varsity tennis player, but those who knew him best remembered him for something quieter.

“He was always the moderator,” Sherry Collins said. “If someone were upset, Jake would step in and try to calm things down.”

He taught himself guitar, loved hiking and reading, and by his mother’s account, had no interest in being the center of attention.

“He didn’t need attention,” she said. “That was Jake.”

His first psychiatric break came while he was studying accounting at SUNY New Paltz. Sherry Collins, who had prior experience in mental health work, recognized the signs and brought him to an emergency room. The hospital had no dedicated psychiatric unit.

“We were there for hours,” she said. “Over six hours, waiting for someone from the county mental health team to come evaluate him.”

Jake was eventually transferred to another facility. That pattern — crisis, transfer, brief stabilization, discharge — would repeat itself many times in the years that followed.

Life on the road, and the limits of the system
Despite his illness, Jake Collins built a life. He married Jiawen Tu in 2023, during a period of relative stability. The two had met through work and eventually took jobs as a long-haul driving team for Schneider Trucking, crossing the country together in the same truck.

“They worked together, lived together, everything,” Sherry Collins said. “She supported him through all of it.”

During one trip, Jake experienced a severe psychiatric episode while they were in Texas. They left their belongings behind and flew back to New York so he could be hospitalized.

At a Middletown hospital during another crisis, he arrived nearly catatonic and unable to speak. Staff, his mother said, initially misread the severity.

“I had to tell them, ‘This is not who he is. This is a breakdown,’” she said.

Even when inpatient care was available, it was brief. Insurance limitations typically meant days, not weeks, of treatment — followed by discharge and a referral to an outpatient provider that could be a 40-minute drive away.

“They stabilize him, and then he’s out,” she said. “Insurance doesn’t allow for long-term care.”

In the weeks before his death, Jake sought a psychiatric appointment on his own. He could not get one until months later.

“He tried to get help,” Sherry Collins said. “But the system couldn’t meet him in time.”

A statewide crisis
New York’s suicide rate, while lower than the national average, has risen significantly over the past two decades, according to the state Office of Mental Health’s 2024 Suicide Prevention Report. More than 1,700 New Yorkers die by suicide each year. Among people in their 20s and 30s, suicide ranks among the leading causes of death.

The report also identifies access to care as a persistent statewide challenge — a gap the Collins family knows firsthand.

Harckham, who represents portions of the Hudson Valley, has backed state Senate Bill S2708, which would advance suicide deterrent infrastructure and public safety planning on bridges. After a separate bridge-related death, he called for accelerated action.

“This latest tragedy strengthens our resolve to get barriers on the bridge as soon as possible,” Harckham said.

What Sherry Collins wants
More than two years after her son’s death, Sherry Collins continues to speak publicly about his life and what she believes failed him: a mental health system unable to respond quickly enough to a young man who, in his final weeks, was trying to save himself.

She wants longer inpatient stays, faster access to outpatient care, and physical barriers on the region’s bridges.

She also wants communities to pay attention to people who may be quietly struggling.

“He didn’t have close friends,” she said. “Sometimes just one connection can make a difference.”

Tu, Jake’s widow, has remained close to the Collins family and now works as an engineer on bridge projects — an irony, Sherry Collins noted, that is not lost on those who know the story.

Jake Collins, his mother insists, was more than the circumstances of his death.

“He was a blessing,” she said. “We were lucky to have him, even for that short time.”

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day.