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.
Love the NIMBY ass “we don’t want effective barriers to keep people from jumping because then we cant see the view, so put in an invisible torture device that will horribly maim and punish people already so far gone they’ve decided to end it” approach. Really sums up San Francisco. Why don’t they just install a fucking Suicide Booth at each end of the bridge. They clearly aren’t after stopping attempts, they just don’t want to look at it. Easier to find a corpse in the human fishing net 20 feet down than trolling the bay.
Exactly. I’m sorry for their view, which is an undeniably beautiful view, isn’t as nice and I’m sorry that the historic bridge is less attractive now, but this is going to stop people from dying for fuck’s sake!
Some people would see the nets - a lifesaving device put there by the sheer force and willpower of a community who care so deeply about helping people survive their worst struggles that they pushed the powers that be to design, construct, and pay for it to be put in place and save human lives - and find that a really fucking beautiful sight.
I agree. But I don’t care if they think it’s the ugliest thing they ever saw. That’s beside the point.
How about instead of nets, we instead install a functioning mental health care system. This has ‘put bulletproof vests on school kids’ written all over it.
Why not both haha. But yes I agree. 2k people killing themselves off this since it’s open is insane
This says 4000 people died by suicide in California in one year. 2k people over almost 100 years isn’t crazy. These nets won’t make a dent in the yearly total.
The question is how many of those suicides were conducted by jumping off the bridge. And don’t say “they’d just choose another way to end themselves”. Studies and historical evidence shows that making suicide even slightly less convenient to perform actually does save lives. People get fixated on a method that seems easy. When that method is no longer easy, it gives them a chance to not go through with it.
Damn. We gonna need a lot more nets then
We’ll need nets around every handgun.
eh, but making this net prolly just makes them kill themselves in other (perhaps more harmful) places, like off train platforms and using guns
Now ask yourself if we had proper quality healthcare for this, how many of those 2,000 would still be with us- vs. if we had nets.
I guarantee every one of them would have found another way.
Oh no this is definitely true. I still would like to advocate for mental health services and better access for sure
Mental health care, but also better wealth distribution/quality of living for everyone.
We make fun of China for installing similar nets on their buildings. Maybe we can consider some time actually doing something about the cause of suicide rather than just stopping the action. Healthcare, especially mental healthcare, poverty, housing. But no, just nets.
Ok, I feel dark for making this meme.
I for one, love it. Nice work. The subject is uncomfortable, but this is absolutely a valid criticism of the system and the outcome in this case.
The fact that you used a meme based on a pawn shop - an institution that tends to take advantage of people on hard times - makes this dark and pithy. The only thing more fitting would be a payday loan center, but thankfully that hasn’t made it to reality TV just yet.
Those nets are on factories though. That is QUITE different. Where in the USA are suicide nets built into the infastructure of businessess and work places to keep the workers from commiting suicide there? I agree they suck at providing the healthcare and stuff but to equate suicide nets on a bridge to suicide nets on places of employment is absolutely not taking into consideration the nuances of both situations.
Us workers don’t live on site like they do there. There were 800,000 workers living in dorms on site when those articles all came out. That doesn’t exist in the US. The suicide rate at the time there was lower than in every US State for comparison.
But golden gate doesn’t have anything inherent that pushes people to commit suicide. I feel like it’s wasted money if the only thing this means is that this will happen somewhere else, what’s the point then? Wouldn’t it be spent better on mental healthcare for those who need it the most?
Edit 0: (I’m not super angry that they did install the nets, sure why not, it’s not that expensive anyways, but I don’t really feel like it solves the real issue. I’m mostly talking from my opinions and I don’t have that many facts on this topic, maybe tackling suicide hot-spots does indeed reduce the statistic, I sincerely hope so but I doubt it)
Edit 1: After reading the article https://archive.is/Uuyx3 suggested by @Chetzemoka@startrek.website I feel like I was wrong in my initial assessment. Indeed it looks like there is a category of impulsive suicide that might be avoided with these barriers. I thank everyone who is contributing solid arguments to this difficult conversation. Despite the disagreements I see on the comments I believe we are all united in the feeling that this is a painful tragedy that we don’t want to be part of this world
But golden gate doesn’t have anything inherent that pushes people to commit suicide.
Don’t be so sure about that. Check out some of this research.
Believe it or not, reducing access to lethal means actually reduces the number of deaths by suicide, and we have robust data to back this up.
“Nine out of ten people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by suicide at a later date. This has been well-established in the suicidology literature. A literature review (Owens 2002) summarized 90 studies that have followed over time people who have made suicide attempts that resulted in medical care. Approximately 7% (range: 5-11%) of attempters eventually died by suicide, approximately 23% reattempted non-fatally, and 70% had no further attempts.”
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survival/
We ALSO need to improve people’s material conditions and provide better mental health care. But even in societies with strong social safety nets, people still die by suicide. Reducing access to lethal means will reduce deaths, giving people time and opportunity to access any social safety net that exists.
There’s one particularly fascinating case study out of Washington state:
"Running perpendicular to the Ellington Bridge, a stone’s throw away, is another bridge, the Taft. Both span Rock Creek, and even though they have virtually identical drops into the gorge below - about 125 feet - it is the Ellington that has always been notorious as Washington’s “suicide bridge.” By the 1980s, the four people who, on average, leapt from its stone balustrades each year accounted for half of all jumping suicides in the nation’s capital. The adjacent Taft, by contrast, averaged less than two.
After three people leapt from the Ellington in a single 10-day period in 1985, a consortium of civic groups lobbied for a suicide barrier to be erected on the span. Opponents to the plan…had the added ammunition of pointing to the equally lethal Taft standing just yards away: if a barrier were placed on the Ellington, it was not at all hard to see exactly where thwarted jumpers would head.
Except the opponents were wrong. A study conducted five years after the Ellington barrier went up showed that while suicides at the Ellington were eliminated completely, the rate at the Taft barely changed, inching up from 1.7 to 2 deaths per year. What’s more, over the same five-year span, the total number of jumping suicides in Washington had decreased by 50 percent, or the precise percentage the Ellington once accounted for."
And you know why twice as many people jumped off the Ellington vs. the Taft bridge in the first place? Because the railings on the Taft were slightly higher and therefore harder to scale.
I don’t know if this article is paywalled or how to fix that, but it also contains details of a specific study conducted on people who intended to, but didn’t jump off the Golden Gate bridge specifically. The absurdity of how minor an obstacle was required to prevent their deaths is amazing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html
“Nine out of ten people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by suicide at a later date. This has been well-established in the suicidology literature. A literature review (Owens 2002) summarized 90 studies that have followed over time people who have made suicide attempts that resulted in medical care. Approximately 7% (range: 5-11%) of attempters eventually died by suicide, approximately 23% reattempted non-fatally, and 70% had no further attempts.”
I am one of those nine. It is absolutely true. As you are dying, you realize what a mistake you’re making. I’m glad I survived.
I appreciate your edit so much. More people should feel free to not only be educated with new info, but be confident in openly sharing the fact that they were and help spread that info forward. Learning stuff is awesome.
I think it can be nice. Could stop unintentional falls by kids or drunk people too. Or just people fucking around by the edge of the bridge. Happens all the time in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon NP. People accidently take a 500+ foot header off the cliffs trying to get a picture or get a better view.
Yeah, fair point!
Holy shit, 6m down onto inflexible steel mesh. For reference, a 5 meter diving platform is significantly higher than a normal American high dive. That would really fucking hurt. But it would save your life.
Might be intentional. If it was closer/less of a drop, it might just become “another handrail” where the “oh shit I don’t want to do this” doesn’t happen until after you jump off the net. By making it such a big drop, you increase the chances of that realization happening first, and if the net causes an injury, that might also stop the person from making it to the edge of the net and going over.
Basically, by making it a big drop it’s become a bigger obstacle, which could increase effectiveness.
Ok this pretty much answers my question. I think you’re right. I was thinking. What’s stopping them from jumping off the net after the jump onto it.
But ive heard of people who survive attempted suicide by jumping almost all regret it while jumping off.
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why can’t they do both?
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The US government is going to do literally everything it can other than provide universal Healthcare until the country collapses.
Nets are cheaper than mental health care.
Reminds me of that Bojack Horseman poem.
"But this is it, the deed is done silence drowns the sound. Before I leaped I should’ve seen the view from halfway down.
I really should’ve thought about the view from halfway down. I wish I could’ve known about the view from halfway down—"
The weak breeze whispers nothing
The water screams sublime
His feet shift, teeter-totter
Deep breath, stand back, it’s time
Toes untouch the overpass
Soon he’s water bound
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
The view from halfway down
A little wind, a summer sun
A river rich and regal
A flood of fond endorphins
Brings a calm that knows no equal
You’re flying now
You see things much more clear than from the ground
It’s all okay, it would be
Were you not now halfway down
Thrash to break from gravity
What now could slow the drop
All I’d give for toes to touch
The safety back at top
But this is it, the deed is done
Silence drowns the sound
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
The view from halfway down
I really should’ve thought about
The view from halfway down
I wish I could’ve known about
The view from halfway down
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
20 foot drop onto “nets” made of stainless steel? I feel like this may still be a fatal fall.
Edit: I’m not negative on the idea, but it sounds like you are still having a pretty bad time if one of these nets saves your life.
Stainless steel can be woven into a net that would break the fall, I don’t know if that’s how it works but it would be possible.
I just read a guardian article about it, it’s actually kind of fucked up:
The nets are meant to deter people from jumping and to curb the death rate of those who still attempt to jump, though they will likely be badly injured.
“It’s stainless-steel wire rope netting, so it’s like jumping into a cheese grater,” Dennis Mulligan, the general manager of the bridge district, told the Associated Press. “It’s not soft. It’s not rubber. It doesn’t stretch. We want folks to know that if you come here, it will hurt if you jump.”
Notice it says CURB the death rate, which sounds like they anticipate some people will still die? Jesus ffs.
Worse still they anticipate that they’re gonna make it hurt.
Remember folks suicide is a crime. You can, and will be forcefully locked away for trying to check yourself out.
Yeah that’s pretty fucked up. Sounds like the punishment for trying to kill yourself is intentional maiming or possible death. Sheesh.
Now I am kinda negative on the idea.
Some people still jumped into the net, and crews then helped them out of there. A handful of them jumped into the ocean from the net and died, he added.
There is a pretty harrowing documentary about people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Apparently it happens so often that if you set up a camera, after long enough you will catch lots of people considering it and doing it.
I think it’s called “The Bridge”? It was on YouTube when I watched it years ago, dunno if it’s still there. Maybe someone else will find it. But heads up, it’s not exactly a fun watch.
Can’t they just jump off the net?
Unpopular opinion: This is a complete waste of taxpayer money that could’ve gone towards any number of issues that actually cause people to want to kill themselves.
Here’s a thought, you can do multiple things if you didn’t have people in the US fighting socialised health care. But until you do, it’s suicide nets for all.
Oh boy, I love following in the footsteps of the Chinese Communist Parties solutions.
Obviously every action they do is the correct action!
Yep yep!
Way to miss the point.
Way to miss the joke.
Yeah, missed the joke (if there actuallywas one), but my point stands.
“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…"
This logic doesn’t track for me. How would a new have led to police intervention and help? Or, am I now realizing they mean after the jump and landing in the net, then there would be police? But it’s phrased poorly. The net would stop the death, not police. What a crappy sentence. I truly can’t tell.
… sure hope the contractor doesn’t install razor-sharp steel net by mistake to spaghettify (french fry cut?) anything falling on it …
Are you 12?
No, but I’m sure I’ve seen Jerry do this to Tom when I was 12.
So your justification is a cartoon?
depends on the size of the holes in the net and whether the person jumps pencil or belly flop
meeting resistance from people who did not want to alter the iconic landmark
Well this attitude leads to not only increased homelessness, buy I guess also suicide rates 🙁
I mean, there’s a solution that doesn’t involve altering the landmark, but would those people support actually fixing the problem?
Ensuring people’s basic needs are met and they have access to mental health support is a lot more difficult than putting an unsightly band-aid on the problem.
