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.
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—"
It’s a fucking amazing poem and had me in tears the first time I saw that episode.
People falling that 30 feet and being stopped in the act may help them see that jumping, or suicide in general is not the answer.
Great show.
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
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.
… 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 what I would have to justify.
I can’t justify (ever) being 12, I was forced to exist without my consent.
It’s steel wire, this is gonna turn some people into french fries a la Cube
At such a small distance? Maybe some bruises at worst.
depends on the size of the holes in the net and whether the person jumps pencil or belly flop
So you are saying they should skip the complicated nonsense & just install safety laser nets (like those in Resident Evil movie & a few others probably) …
“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.
What’s the point? Someone who wants to kill themselves will probably find another way. It’s not like there’s a shortage of ways to commit suicide. I could literally list 1000 ways to do it in this comment but I’m too lazy.
“Oh man, there’s a net over the bridge, I guess I’m not killing myself now. Oh well.” — Someone living on an 8th floor.
Go for the root cause and attack the mental health issues…
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So we’re tackling a fraction of the suicides (only impulse) from the 2000 people who killed themselves in that place over 100 years. So 20 people per year. Let’s say 50% of those were caused by impulse because we have no statistics. 10 per year in a city with 2.5K suicides per year.
Someone who wanted to commit suicide by impulse and didn’t do it there will probably feel the impulse again somewhere else. So again, doing the 50% rule, let’s say you saved only 5 of the 10.
Go for the root cause. This is just a waste of money.
It’s harsh but I agree, seems like not seeing the forest. This money probably could’ve saved more people were it used more efficiently. Are we gonna do netting around every tall thing in this world?
Damn bro, just admit when you’re wrong and move on.
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I’m wrong because I’m saying they could have invested this money tackling the root cause which would have saved many more lives? OK.
What if, and it’s just a thought, they invested in tackling the root cause and did preventative measures at suicide hotspots to help prevent suicide and we don’t criticize anyone for at least succeeding at one of those two?
The cost is 76 million without maintenance. Is that reasonable? That amount of money invested in mental Healthcare could have saved more people.
Yes, it is reasonable if it stops suicides. How about investing money in both?
Even in countries with robust mental healthcare have suicides.
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Go for the root cause and attack the mental health issues…
I’d argue the real root of the problem is the disparity in wealth.
I don’t know, do we have demographics on suicide per income levels?
More equal societies are happier ones.
Makes sense, it’s not about who is rich and poor but about being equals.
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.
It looks like it’s still saving the people that made impulsive decisions, and for everyone else more determined, you’re right they will still go.
But a life saved is a life saved my dude, and about 30 people a year were jumping off before the net, you can’t assume every one of them will just off themselves somewhere else.
I’m not saying “don’t save lives”, I’m saying “you could have saved more lives with the same money”
While that’s true, you literally started the conversation asking what the point was, and the few saved lives is the point.
It’s also impossible to calculate the amount of lives saved over time from the preventative effect of people deciding not to use it now since it may not work.
They can always raise more money to now spend elsewhere, but those lives lost are forever.
This reminds me of the time San Francisco decided to do something about it’s human-feces-in-the-BART-escalator-wells problem, not by making public restrooms available to unsheltered folk, but building stupid awnings to keep people from pooping inside. The awnings cost more than the toilets would have and people just pooped on the sidewalks instead. ℹ️🫶🌉😀
Curious since I’m not familiar, how do the awnings prevent this? I went to SF a few years ago and there was a giant pile of human shit every 4 blocks so I’m not too surprised.
Odd, I lived in the Bay Area for years and never once saw a pile of human excrement in the city.
It must be a fairly recent phenomenon then. I was there in 2022 and it was quite sad to see the amount of people left homeless around the city.
There’s an increasing number of homeless people in all cities. The streets just aren’t paved in turds like some people apparently love to pretend.
They basically close off the street level entrance when the transit isn’t running. The escalators used to be open at the top and closed at the bottom during off hours, making a lovely little private pooping tunnel. The city budget people didn’t GAF about the bio hazard or human dignity issues, they just didn’t like that all the excrement kept breaking the escalators.
Old article from before they implemented them (the article mentions the budget proposal being $4 million, it’s turned into $64 million and counting).
Friedenbach balked at the canopy proposal. “I find it interesting that they’re spending this much money on canopies when they could be using it to keep their bathrooms open.” More so, the money could be used for keeping the high-traffic drop-in centers operational. A few years back, San Francisco, under former-mayor Gavin Newsom’s authority, sought to cut over a million dollars in funding for many of the city’s highest-traffic drop-in centers. The Coalition for Homelessness wouldn’t stand for it. “We’d already seen almost half of the centers close,” Friedenbach recalled, “so we figured out how many pounds of feces the public facilities kept off the street.” Friedenbach and company estimated that the cost of cutting back or getting rid of drop-in centers altogether would be over 58,000 pounds of human feces on the streets of San Francisco.
[…]
Regarding the four million dollars spent on the canopy proposal, Friedenbach said, “You could capture a large amount of feces [with bathrooms], instead of the one shit a night you might be staving off with this.”
Old article from before they implemented them (the article mentions the budget proposal being $4 million, it’s turned into $64 million and counting).
$4 million for one canopy.
FTA:
The canopy, still in prototype form, would be designed and built over the next two years at a cost of almost four million dollars, with the first installation scheduled for 2015 at the 19th Street station in Oakland.
The project is expected to cost $4 million per entrance.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/bart-seeks-public-opinion-about-planned-improvements-for-sf-stations
This guy Friedenbach sounds like he knows his shit.
The US government is going to do literally everything it can other than provide universal Healthcare until the country collapses.
I’m pretty sure California is in the process of implementing its own state-funded healthcare system.
It’s the way to do it, just like with legalizing drugs.
For real. It would be interesting to see the average financial depth of the people who attempt suicide in the US.
Nets are cheaper than mental health care.
Wait you’re telling me this isn’t what they meant by safety nets??
The physical, not social kind. “We’ll catch you when you fall… this is not a metaphor.”
So, now you just need to jump from the net after it catches you? That does not seem like much of a barrier.
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.
Pain is not death. False advertising.
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.
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Are you trying to argue that most people who regret suicide attempts are lying about it to avoid treatment?
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There are an absolute fuck ton of people who lie about suicidal ideation because they fear the consequences of being honest.
Do you know what proportion of people who regret suicide attempts are lying about it?
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Oh, so you don’t know if it’s 5% or 50%?
Well, whatever the percentage may be, consider the remaining people who do regret it afterwards and aren’t lying about it.
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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.
Did it actually reduce suicides though, or just redirect them to other means?
All that and The Golden Gate Bridge is still way better looking. It’s not even close.
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.
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.
Wow, some absolute lemon actually downvoted you.
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.
Self preservation is an impulse.
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.”
But is it saving anyone or are they jumping from somewhere else?
Probably a bit of both. “Successful” suicide and following through with ideation is partly about opportunity. This is why likelihood of suicide is higher in homes with firearms, especially handguns, that are easy to access. Making following through with a suicidal impulse or ideation mitigates the situation for long enough for a good portion of people to shake it and/or get help.
There are still those that will seek out another way but, by mitigating the risk at the Golden Gate, resources that have been needed there can be partially re-allocated to other spaces to catch those that are still slipping through. In a sense, it’s a bit like triage and whack-a-mole, where the population at the next target is likely smaller.
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 >:)
They injure themselves.
Lol, what is up with this comment chain?
They injure themselves? What are you trying to say?
They injure themselves because they are the ones who choose to jump…
So why not just let them choose death?
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Probably because the “services” that are “designed to help us” usually involve throwing us in a psych ward where you’re surrounded by people with serious mental illness to the point you can’t sleep a full night because some guy down the hall is screaming at the demons in his head.
So yeah that could be a reason.
This is still going to hurt a lot of people that jump, probably still broken backs and the occasional death.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Does the bay bridge have nets too?
No but you can’t walk out onto the bay bridge as easily as with Golden Gate.
The new eastern span has a really nice pedestrian walkway and bidirectional bike path between Oakland and Treasure Island.
The old western span does not have a walkway, so you need to enter from treasure island or Oakland / Emeryville.
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.
Good point. I apologize for a fairly off the cuff remark about this. We really do need better mental health support in the US.
Complete waste of public funds.
Why don’t you go prove them wrong.
People will just drown instead, the net only stops people from going to that location.
People jump off high locations to avoid drowning…
Well excuse me Mr. I Know Everything, it’s not about ethics or reason. A way to die is a opportunity for the person to do it. Just like they have the choice to jump.
To put it in other words, people are usually looking for an easy way out when they commit suicide, like jumping off a bridge. Or using a gun. Very few suicides with drowning, cause it’s a horrible way to go.
It’s dystopian as hell, but taking away the easy ways to kill oneself does help prevent suicides.
No it doesn’t stop, before such things were invented, people did try to drown. Cartoons jokes about downing characters to escape their bad life was a thing. Jumping off cliffs to the sea was/is a thing.
Stopping people on the easy path to death just leads to alternative forms or a lot more dangerous situations that the person would suffer before they could finally die.
Suicide is often a spur-of-the-moment impulse. Therefore opportunity plays a huge role. Remove the opportunity and a lot of people won’t go through with it. This has been studied extensively.
Are you suggesting that they jump off the bridge?
No, I am suggesting they go to San Francisco and protest the suicide nets. Maybe get a grassroots movement, and come to the attention of some group with an opposite viewpoint…
You know something as useless as their comment.
I actually agree that these founds could instead go to prevent suicide reason - mental health, social security, affordable housing.
We could do thay as well as putting prevention methods in place. You know attack a problem from all angles.
What idiots are downvoting this? The problem isn’t that the bridge is too high. It’s that the people who have suicided there in the past had no access to mental health care. You downvoters are not looking at the root of the problem. You really think all the suicidal people are just gonna magically cure themselves because they installed nets?
The money spent on not only the nets and installing them etc but also the lawmakers that wasted their time coming up with this idea and meeting about it etc etc is ALL a waste of public funds and could have been put to much better use towards the actual problem.
This is just Americans patting themselves on the back pretending they’re doing a good job 👏🏼
You know, the nets aren’t a waste. Preventing the opportunity can help save the life.
Fuck sakes. This is why I said why don’t you go prove it.
Do you have any information that contradicts the effectiveness of barriers at suicide hotspots?
Or is it just your ‘feelings’?
What sort of argument is this? Obviously if the net catches a fucking person then yeah good job nets. But the root of the problem isn’t people falling off the bridge on accident. It’s people with unaddressed mental health issues wanting to kill themselves. How about we address the mental health aspects instead of just making them jump off a different bridge or shoot themselves or any other of a million different ways to kill yourself. If I really wanna die a net on that specific bridge won’t stop me I’ll just find another way.
How about we address the mental health aspects instead
How about we do both?
Wouldn’t that be great! Unfortunately,I feel like the us will never get to the point of having any decent socialized healthcare. :(
Not with an attitude like that.
When the article says “Barriers and safety nets at suicide hotspots can reduce rates by 90%”, does it mean at the hotspots or globally? Because if it happens somewhere else it feels like kicking the can down the road…
True because they’ll just kill themselves another way. 2000 in almost 100 years isn’t anywhere near the other ways.
This has actually been studied pretty extensively and because suicide is often about opportunity, most people won’t simply do it another way. I know it’s counterintuitive, but it’s what the data shows.
Removing carbon monoxide from cooking gas lines in the UK caused a massive drop in suicides. Without an easy DIY suicide machine at home people literally stopped killing themselves.
… though in America they’re probably just going to use a gun or fentanyl. Those are easy DIY suicide techniques too.
Removing carbon monoxide from cooking gas lines in the UK caused a massive drop in suicides
Did it really? I live in the US and have read that an inexpensive improvement to burners would lead to decreased indoor air pollution, but industry is against it. This other tidbit would make that resistance so much worse than it already is.
Yup, they used to use something called “town gas” which was made from coal refining. People would put their heads in the oven, turn on the gas, and wait. Quick painless death - just going to sleep. Learned it listening to the Meeting Strangers audiobook in a section about Coupling Theory.
Wow, it looks like that info is about 50 years old, making it even worse… It also looks like it says the folks looking to use that method may have sought out others, I wonder how we as a society have performed on that since that time. Also, I am generally poor at reading abstracts, apologies if I am getting this wrong.
Thanks for sharing!!
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Also reminds me there’s a thing called “social safety net” (that each year becomes smaller and smaller)
Mental health care, but also better wealth distribution/quality of living for everyone.
Yeah, all the mental health care in the world doesn’t mean jack shit when you’re living paycheck to paycheck your entire life.
Mental health care professionals and their shills will of course say otherwise, though.
It’s always about the money.
All the mental healthcare in the world doesn’t make the world a more acceptable living space.
“Have you tried therapy?”
uhhhh, cheers.
“What colour do you want your dragon?”
Rofl, make it a very hungry one please (that’s s colour, right?).
Actually, make it like an eco terrorist type of thing, just attaching random shit that is causing loss is various habitats & ecosystems around the world. That would be pretty cool, like gleefully look at the news ‘Let’s see what the unstoppable Dragonzilla
destroyedbalanced or rescued today.’
Why not both haha. But yes I agree. 2k people killing themselves off this since it’s open is insane
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Oh no this is definitely true. I still would like to advocate for mental health services and better access for sure
Bulldoze the bridge and exterminate everyone.
No more suicides.
Why bulldoze the bridge if there aren’t any people left anyway? That sounds wasteful.
It’s the moral and environmentally friendly thing to do so.
Judge Death approves.
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.
Oh, for sure! I meant to counter the statement that 2k in a 100 years was an insane amount. 4k in one year is insane.
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
What about door kicking and room clearing during homeroom?
/s
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