Phillip Cooke's death last year is believed to be the first suicide formally attributed to the Christchurch earthquakes. Photo / Simon Baker
Christchurch's earthquakes have claimed their first suicide.
Coroner Sue Johnson's finding on the death of Phillip Cooke, 54, in January last year is believed to be the first suicide formally attributed to the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes, a Justice Ministry spokesman said.
Ms Johnson found the railway worker
was being treated for depression brought on by the earthquakes when he took his own life.
"His home in Avonside was without power and water for weeks after the September 4, 2010 earthquake and after the February 22, 2011 earthquake it was so severely damaged it became uninhabitable," she said in her ruling released yesterday.
Mr Cooke had been particularly affected by the February quake which forced him and and his elderly mother into a much smaller house on the other side of town. "Prior to the earthquakes, Mr Cooke was a happy, balanced, even-keeled and stable person actively involved in the community, never becoming flustered in a crisis and always calm and collected," Ms Johnson said.
