Kevin Hines regretted jumping off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge the moment his hands released the rail and he plunged the equivalent of 25 stories into the Pacific Ocean, breaking his back.
Hines miraculously survived his suicide attempt at age 19 in September 2000 as he struggled with bipolar disorder, one of about 40 people who survived after jumping off the bridge.
Hines, his father, and a group of parents who lost their children to suicide at the bridge relentlessly advocated for a solution for two decades, meeting resistance from people who did not want to alter the iconic landmark with its sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
On Wednesday, they finally got their wish when officials announced that crews have installed stainless-steel nets on both sides of the 1.7-mile (2.7-kilometer) bridge.
“Had the net been there, I would have been stopped by the police and gotten the help I needed immediately and never broken my back, never shattered three vertebrae, and never been on this path I was on,” said Hines, now a suicide prevention advocate. “I’m so grateful that a small group of like-minded people never gave up on something so important.”
Nearly 2,000 people have plunged to their deaths since the bridge opened in 1937.
City officials approved the project more than a decade ago, and in 2018 work began on the 20-foot-wide (6-meter-wide) stainless steel mesh nets. But the efforts to complete them were repeatedly delayed until now.
The nets — placed 20 feet (6 meters) down from the bridge’s deck — are not visible from cars crossing the bridge. But pedestrians standing by the rails can see them. They were built with marine-grade stainless steel that can withstand the harsh environment that includes salt water, fog and strong winds that often envelop the striking orange structure at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay.
So, now you just need to jump from the net after it catches you? That does not seem like much of a barrier.
every barrier helps, most suicide attempts are impulse decisions. forcing people to jump 30 feet into a net before they can jump a lethal distance makes it that much harder to follow through.
100%.
Several people have jumped into them. Some have been rescued from there, but “a handful” had “jumped into the net and then jumped to their death,” Mulligan said.
He declined to say how many. It will take a year or two of data to fully understand the system’s effectiveness, he said.
In the decade beginning in 2011, bridge officials said, there were 335 confirmed suicides, or an average of 33.5 per year. In 2022, as the first nets were being strung, there were 22. Through October this year, as more nets have been added, there were 13.
“If we save 30 lives a year, and not 31, it’s worth it for those 30 people who we saved,” Mulligan said. “And that’s every year. To greatly reduce the number of people dying in the community is a worthy goal. And to achieve that is success.”
Not an impulse decision. It’s been what I’ve wanted for the past couple years. When I tried, my finger wouldn’t pull the trigger just like Dolores couldn’t do it at first in Westworld.
I think it’s more “successful suicide” is generally an impulse decision because that disallows our self-preservation time to kick in.
That said, are you ok? Need someone to talk to? Why have you desired to end your life?
I’m not a qualified mental health professional but would be willing to lend a virtual ear, if you need it, and see if I can help to find resources available to you. I’m not going to be terribly available today but please feel free to DM me.
A 20’ drop to a steel rope net wouldn’t be a soft landing. It’s unlikely anyone would be able to, or be interested in, crawling to edge to finish the job.
Oh so you injure the person and laden them with medical debt, America really is great >:)
This is one of those “clever” comments that are actually just retarded if you think about it.
Did you read the article? One guy who jumped said he regretted it immediately after falling. This gives people an opportunity to experience that same regret before they try doing it again.
I too would regret suicide when asked especially because if I say ‘Im gonna do it again’. - I get to spend 3 more days on a psychiatric hold treated like an animal.
Are you trying to argue that most people who regret suicide attempts are lying about it to avoid treatment?
I’m from Melbourne. We had a problem with people jumping from the West Gate bridge and we engineered safety barriers that reduced suicides to zero.
That’s right. Zero.
It even reduced the jump rate by 65% at our other bridges. All that, without looking cheap and ugly AF.
Think of the first fall as a “proof of concept”. If after falling ~20 feet to a chain link fence, you still feel like dragging your injured self to the edge of the fence to finish the job, then it’s highly unlikely anything will stop you from killing yourself. The fence is kind of a “try before you buy” thing.
