WARREN – Last month, a Warren native jumped to her death from the Hoover Dam bypass bridge in Nevada. Now her family is on a mission to increase safety measures at the bridge.

“Our two goals are to increase safety measures at the bridge, as well as to raise funds to help suicide prevention and information,” said her mother, Merial Price of West Farmington. “So many people are affected by these issues and I think that it has been shoved under the rug because for so long people didn’t want to talk about suicide or suicide attempts.”

Heather Papayoti, 42, of Phoenix, jumped from the Michael O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge at around 5 p.m. Jan 10. Papayoti’s body was recovered from the Colorado River early Jan. 11. The surface of the river is about 900 feet below the bridge.

Papayoti was the seventh reported person to commit suicide on the bridge since it opened in October, 2010. She was born in Warren and attended Farmington and Bristol local schools before graduating from Kent State University in 1994.

Price said that her issue with the bridge itself is that she feels there are not enough safety precautions in place to prevent future incidents.

According to Mary Martini, district engineer for the Nevada Department of Transportation, options to discourage bridge suicides were discussed before the bridge was even opened.

“If there was a fail-safe method to preventing jumpers, we would have (pursued it),” she said. “It’s heartbreaking that there are individuals who want (to commit suicide), but even if we took all the measures we could to prevent this, the reality is that the dam itself has been the scene of many suicides, and there are accessible cliffs on either side for people who would want to jump. The bridge itself isn’t the only place for people.”

Martini said that many precautions have been discussed over the years, including adding a safety net below the bridge to raising the safety railing and erecting a plexiglas screen to prevent jumpers.

For a variety of reasons, she said, all potential options have been deemed unrealistic by the Nevada group.

“We spent a lot of time going back over the design of the bridge and trying to take a look at the areas where things could be retrofitted (for safety),” Martini said. “But our biggest problem is we have to design and anticipate anything that could happen to the bridge. We don’t just worry about jumpers; we have to be concerned about everything from the bridge being a target for terrorism to its status as a tourist attraction.”

Martini and the Nevada department’s research has proven to be little consolation for Price, however, who said her fight to improve safety conditions at the bridge is far from over.

“They need to do something,” Price said. “I know that they’ve said that jumpers will always find a way (to commit suicide), but if that was a member of your family, wouldn’t you want to do anything possible to save them?”

Tempe police reported that Price reported her daughter missing the morning of Jan. 10 from a nearby behavioral health facility.

“The help that (Papayoti) was getting just was not helping,” Price said. “We were hoping that she would be able to climb out of the dark hole she was in, but she was unable to do it; her coping skills were just gone.

“It was heartbreaking to see her the way she was,” Price added.

Price said that Papayoti’s issues just recently surfaced and that her daughter had not attempted suicide in the past.

“These issues are something that she had only been dealing with since September of last year,” Price said. “This was not the person we remember Heather as. She was always the kind of person who lit up a room when she walked in.”

Price and her family have deep ties to the Warren area. A retired teacher, Price taught at a number of area schools, including the former East Junior High, as well as West Farmington and later, Bristolville High School. Price is also a member of the Champion Rotary, as well as volunteering her time with the Newton Falls schools.

Price’s husband, the late Leonard Price Jr., taught at East Jr. High and served as a guidance counselor at Western Reserve High until his death in 1987.