Imo he probably cut bridge ropes with something, otherwise yeah worthless suicide bc he could of picked the son and run too.
Also i know everyone can guess that father wasnt lying about the apocalypse from the start (bc of the name) but he literally changed like 0-100 as a father. If this pacing continues with a nice story this could be one of my fav apocalypse stories. Bc most of the time its either too shit or too peak (and peak ones are rare).