How many people kill themselves on the golden gate bridge

Unfortunately, no rescue or resuscitation would be needed upon their arrival, only the retrieval of a broken body. Mixed emotions overwhelmed me, at once feeling astonished, humbled, and sad. My misconception that a jump from the sidewalk can be survived, ended in an instant. Bridge workers later impressed upon me the rarity of witnessing an entire jump as I had, but I did not feel privileged. Although I had never met Gene Sprague, I feel sorrow even today for having witnessed his passing.

The east sidewalk is the setting for almost every jump. The sidewalk is a ten feet wide concrete walkway that runs the length of the bridge, taking gradual turns around each tower. About every hundred yards, metal latched emergency gates have been installed for bridge patrol and tow service to access the sidewalk from the roadway.

Rumor has it the low rail height can be attributed to bridge designer Joseph Strauss being only five feet tall. Beyond the outer rail, three feet below the outside edge of the sidewalk, is a three feet wide steel box chord, which is the only thing between the outer rail and a feet fall to the waters below.

Due to constant fog and moisture in the air, the top of the chord is wet nearly all the time and can be extremely slick. Very dangerous conditions for those of us who walk on steel every day, let alone a nervous person climbing down onto it for the first time. A victim caught on surveillance video learned a tragic lesson about the dangers of going over the outer rail. It is late evening, and a middle-aged man stands alone on the sidewalk near a light pole, not another soul in sight.

Fog blanketed the bridge on this dark drizzly night. The heavy mist gave the sidewalk lighting an eerie faded glow, just enough light to help guide him over the guardrail.

Awkwardly he climbs over the rail and now stands on the chord ready to jump. Suddenly, he appears to be having second thoughts about his decision. He does not want to jump. He is scared and disoriented, but not ready to end his life. He gets up his nerve to climb back over the rail to safety. He reaches for the handrail but comes up considerably short. Due to the drop from the sidewalk to the chord, the top handrail is now over seven feet above him.

The chord glistens with moisture, and must be very slick. The man can only reach the bottom of the guardrail, which he now tightly holds on to, searching for a foothold that will allow him to hoist himself back over the rail. His foot slips from the beam, and his grip fails him.

Falling back down to the wet chord, he slips off the chord, out of sight from the video camera and ultimately gone forever, falling to his death. He learned the hard way how slick and dangerous the outer chord can be, and will never get his second chance at life.

Accounts given from jump survivors all point towards sincere regret setting in immediately after they jump. It can be assumed that most of the hundreds of jumpers who were not lucky enough to survive, had similar regrets. Suicide can be attempted many different ways. Most methods to take your own life are fallible. In four seconds, it is all over. During the four seconds fall, the body will travel the feet at mph, ending with a bone shattering impact of 15, pounds per square inch.

This type of fall will destroy a body and most times cause an instant death. For those that actually survive the fall, their unconscious body will most likely drown from asphyxiation, or breathing in too much salt water in the swift moving feet deep channel. Those who remain conscious may succumb to extensive internal bleeding while trying to stay afloat. They may also die of shock, and if not rescued quickly can die of hypothermia in the frigid waters.

On September 4 th , , nineteen year old Kevin Hines took a foot headfirst dive off the bridge. During the jump, Hines decided he wanted to live, so he rotated his body to hit the water feet first. He hit the water in a sitting position, taking impact in his legs and through his back.

He had suffered serious spinal damage as three of his vertebrae were shattered lacerating his lower organs, but he was alive. In that instant, I thought, what have I just done? God please save me. He is a mental health advocate in the prevention of bridge suicides and wrote a book about his suicide attempt called Cracked, Not Broken.

I remember another jumper and his amazing feat of survival. On March 10, , a report came over our bridge radio that a man held onto the outer chord after climbing over the rail at the south end of the bridge between the South Tower and the South Anchor Block. Later we found out the jumper to be Luke Vilagomez, a seventeen year old from Windsor, California on a field trip with his high school class.

I leaned over the rail and saw the teen dangling over an area where local surfing enthusiasts sometimes spend their lunch hour catching a few waves. Vilagomez eventually let go, falling into the water, landing near a group of these surfers. One of the surfers, fifty-five year old Frederic Lecoutier, who had an extensive background, helped the injured teen to shore.

Lecoutier resuscitated Vilagomez, thus saving his life. Vilagomez broke his coccyx and punctured a lung, but survived. Next, is the unusual case of Paul Aladdin Alarab from Kensington, in the East Bay, who miraculously survived a fall from the bridge in As an act of protest to what he believed to be the mistreatment of the elderly and handicapped, Alarab lowered himself into a garbage can that hung from a 60 feet rope off the bridge.

He lost his grip on the rope and fell. He had three broken ribs and both lungs collapsed but he survived. I was praying for God to give me another chance, I was also wondering about how I would hit, because that is what determines if you will live or die. Fifteen years later, Alarab again found himself in a compromising situation at the Bridge.

On March 19, , the forty-four year old Alarab, protesting the U. Alarab read a statement he had written denouncing the war while law enforcement tried to talk him back over the railing. After finishing the statement, he let go of the rope and fell to the waters below.

This time he did not survive. Investigators ruled it a suicide this time. I guess beating the odds of surviving a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, obviously was not enough for Alarab.

Various methods have been tried to reduce the number of suicides. Suicide hotline telephones are installed throughout the bridge, and staff regularly patrol the bridge in carts or on bicycles, looking for people who appear to be planning to jump. In addition to Golden Gate Bridge patrol, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel, bridge management take pride in training employees from other departments in suicide prevention. Golden Gate Bridge ironworkers and painters volunteer their time to prevent suicides, and receive training on the various signs to look for concerning someone in crisis, such as ways to engage people walking alone on the bridge, or safety protocol when approaching a suspicious person who requires police intervention.

These tactics have helped convince many people not to take their own lives. California Highway Patrol patrolman Kevin Briggs is credited with saving hundreds of lives of would-be-jumpers by talking them out of jumping. A woman had climbed over the guardrail and stood upon the outer chord below. Scared and trembling, she clung tightly to the bridge support cables that ran up through the chord, threatening to let go if anyone tried to grab her. Alfredo, a bridge painter working nearby, calmly approached the frightened young lady.

He sat next to the troubled woman for over and hour, and through dialogue full of heartfelt concern and patience, Alfredo eventually talked this desperate person out of jumping and then helped her back over the rail to safety. The crowd that had gathered around the incident, including myself, began cheering as Alfredo helped the woman into the bridge patrol scooter that would take her off the bridge…alive.

For this woman, the odds of remaining alive are good. There is now one more person in this world with a second chance at a happy life thanks to Alfredo. The U. Coast Guard is on constant alert for jumpers, and when a person is seen jumping from the sidewalk, U. Coast Guard will be first responder to the scene. The station has two 47 feet long motor lifeboats.

When someone jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge, one of these two boats can get to the scene in four to five minutes with sailors who retrieve the jumper and perform lifesaving measures. Spotting a body can be difficult to see at eye level from a Coast Guard rescue vessel.

As soon as a jump is confirmed, bridge patrol will drive to where the jump occurred, exit onto the sidewalk through the access gate, and immediately drop a smoke flare which is basically a smoking kettle the size of a basketball straight down into the water, from the spot the jump was made. The smoking flare will drift the same route as the body whether the tide is ebbing or flowing inward. This way, the Coast Guard can follow the rising smoke to locate the body quickly. This will give the Coast Guard a better chance at a rescue.

Coast Guard is ready to respond quickly to revive a drowning victim, administer CPR to an injured survivor, get a potential survivor out of the water before hypothermia can set in, unfortunately most cases end with the grim task of locating and removing a lifeless body from the water.

Not all bridge employees had compassion for suicide jumpers. Some of these people rationalized that if a person wants to jump, let them. Others were not interested either way. The Golden Gate Bridge, like work places all across America, had many types of gambling by its employees.

Poker games, dominoes, football pools, parley cards, basically, any type of gambling that could exist, did. Management frowned on gambling in the workplace, but good luck trying to eliminate it. The format was a monthly calendar, with blank squares for each day of the month.

The participant paid for a square, then chose any day on this calendar, and signed his name, initials, or alias. Simple objective, a suicide occurring on the day he chose, and he wins all the money built up since the day of the last jump. If there are no jumps during that month, the pot rolls over to the next month. I saw this pool as just a bad joke, or a novelty that would soon go away. A small percentage of employees participated in the pool and most others thought it to be irresponsible, and in bad taste.

The players were not necessarily evil people, they were just among those who had no compassion for jumpers, or those with a serious gambling addiction.

Not much mystery to the identity of those in the pool. They were usually the ones running in to bridge security first thing in the morning to ask if there were any jumpers the day before. I could not avoid the thought that every time a person jumped, a fellow worker just made some money. It was hard imagining someone actually hoping a person jumps off the bridge on a particular day, just to make a few dollars, but I guess we are all different people.

The district will be installing steel wind fairings on the outside western side of the bridge near the sidewalks. In addition, the railing along the sidewalk will be replaced with thinner pickets to allow more area for wind to pass through, Bauer Furbush said. New railings are also being installed to allow the travelers to move along the side of the bridge. The new units will be all-electric compared to the current combustion engine-powered travelers.

As for the barrier, the metal support beams will be installed first and painted the iconic international orange. The metal net and border cables will then be installed, with the net remaining gray so as to blend in with the ocean waters below. The average age of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers is under 40, and more than 10 percent are in their teens. Less than 8 percent are from out of state or abroad. The second most common is teacher. Jumpers fall feet in four seconds at a speed of 75 miles per hour—equivalent to a pedestrian being struck by a car that is traveling that fast.

Most die on impact, but 5 percent survive the fall and end up drowning. Their last few seconds are filled with terror and agonizing pain as their bodies are broken and internal organs are shattered. A handful of people—fewer than 35—have survived a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. Court pauses release of Trump White House records. See Astroworld victim's mom make emotional plea. Rittenhouse's mother gives eyebrow raising interview on Fox News. Growing concern Putin could be preparing to invade Ukraine.

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