ILOILO CITY -- Unable to take the school pressures, a graduating nursing student ended her life Tuesday morning by jumping off the third floor of a mall in this city's financial district.
Authorities rushed Vina Marie del Rosario, 22, to a nearby hospital after she jumped from the third floor of the Atrium mall at General Luna St. here. Doctors declared her dead on arrival.
Del Rosario, a fourth-year nursing student of St. Therese College, died of severe head injuries, hospital officials said.
The victim was positively identified by her family and school officials who rushed to St. Paul's Hospital, located across the Atrium mall.
Her family said a lingering mental problem and supposed pressures in school, particularly her thesis work, triggered the suicide.
Elementary school principal Mila Engalgado, a family friend, told Bombo Radyo Iloilo that Del Rosario had been worried about her thesis until past midnight on Monday.
Del Rosario's peers described her as "studious" and "very serious" in her studies.
A salon staff told reporters that the nursing student was already at the third level of the mall minutes after the establishment opened at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Luben Calixto, a salon staff, said he initially saw Del Rosario sitting on the bench looking distressed. The next time he saw her, the victim was already throwing herself off the steel railings.
Shoppers in the mall's first floor were shocked at the sight of the woman who made a 30-foot death leap.
Calixto said salon staff tried to grab the woman but help came seconds late. (Sunnex)
