Damn...great article. I've been depressed before myself, and even considered suicide, too. (Usual depressed virgin nerd shiat.) It makes me wish I was one of those people walking on the GG bridge, who notices somebody with a problem and talks them down.

Depression is a very addicting feeling. You don't want to get out of your mode of self-doubt and loathing, because you know of the problems ahead which you don't want to face. (Sorta like being addicted to drugs.) Some would consider it cowardly, but you don't know fear unless you've met it face to face. And of course, HS is the end-all test of courage. (Teenage suicide is the most common.)

I feel sorry that there is nothing but apathy in the world (and fark the people who try to turn this thread into a political Iraq flamewar), but it's human nature to turn a blind eye to their fellow man (or to backstab the stranger that helps you). The one about the guy waiting for a smile was really depressing.

/me will go and immerse himself in NIN albums...

Toronto perspective here:

The article mentioned the Prince Edward Viaduct (or the Bloor-Danforth Viaduct, as we call it) and the 'Luminous Veil'.

What a festering pile of horse crap.

I wrote a rant years ago (before the 'veil' was stuck onto this magnificent bridge) saying that this piece of crap would not prevent a single suicide.

1 - because there are two bridges within walking distance that are just as fatal for a jumper, and

2 - because sticking up a fence just doesn't address the idea of WHY the person wants to jump.

To me, the core of the problem isn't sticking up a barrier to stop them, but rather, find out why they want to jump in the first place.

The irony here in Toronto is that the viaduct also has a subway train level (as mentioned in this thread already) and I'm willing to bet that more people off themselves by stepping in front of a subway car than actually jumping off the bridge.

The city has since built the barrier, and as far as I can tell, all it's done is add another 20 feet to the fall of a potential suicide.
jraunimo

We had a guy in Charleston jump off the Cooper River bridge... but he wore a life jacket. He didn't want them to find his body three days later, all eaten by crabs and fishies.

Saved Rescue some time too. Considerate jumper.

In the eighties, workers at a local lumberyard formed the Golden Gate Leapers Associationa sports pool in which bets were placed on which day of the week someone would jump.

Bahahahahaha!

Weird, I was just reading this article before I clicked the link:

http://sptimes.com/2003/10/06/Tampabay/Skyway_safeguards_don.shtml

PS I'd like to bungee jump off it.

PPS Maybe it's a major waste of resources for all these police and coast guard go to after these people jumping. Each one probably costs like $500k in tax money. Maybe if they got NO attention they wouldn't be so inclined to do it.

I learnt to deal with depression by drowning myself in nonsense.

/Leaps off the filing cabinet into the dark grey void of cheap old office carpet.

And of course, HS is the end-all test of courage.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I live in Marin, and constantly go to the city. What's more suicidal is driving in the lane nearest the opposing traffic. With no divider, all I think about are head-ons. shiat, it's like staring into the face of oblivion.

A guy from my work (who was gone before I was ever there), commited suicide. The boss said he had BO, too.

I met a Coast Guard seaman. He said he was always on bridge-patrols. Said also that bodies were flattened from impact. Like pancakes.

As someone who's bungee-jumped, I can vouch that it's hella terrifying.. I had a moment that lasted forever and was over instantaneously, asking myself in bold font, "WTF am I doing?!?"

Can someone in the Bay Area confirm... Aren't there guard rails? Aside from the ones that protect from traffic. I could swear there's velociraptor fencing, keeping bungeeless jumpers from the chord.

hehehehehe, you wanna commit suicide on the bay bridge? DRIVE on it. More people have died on it during the big 89 earthquake than ppl jumped off the GG bridge

Also, when I was in SF 2 weeks ago I drove on the Golden Gate bridge for the first time...toll 5 bucks?? I'd really hate to commute over that thing every day, maybe I'm just cheap ;)

Additional GGB hijinks from newsport

One man visited the bridge, slit his wrists and jumped off. He was found the following morning by someone drawn to his moaning. He had been caught in the girder below the bridge.

One man was shot while trying to commit suicide. When he turned to face the highway partrol, the roll of tape and flashlight in his hand was mistaken for a gun and he was shot. The man was rushed to the hospital. He recovered and months later went back to the bridge and committed suicide by jumping.

A car belonging to a jumper was returned to his family. The jumper's son drove the same car four days later, to the same spot, and jumped off like his father. The son left behind a note saying, "I want to keep my dad company."

Jumpers from the East Bay, as a majority, drive over the Bay Bridge on their way to commit suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge. Only Californians have committed suicide on the Bay Bridge; while people from all over the world jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

A college student was last seen in Williamsburg, VA, riding his bike. Twelve hours -- and a suspected, but not verified, plane ride later -- he was observed jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

The youngest to jump off the bridge was five. The dad, who followed shortly thereafter, told the child to do so.

During a traffic jam caused by a head-on collision on the bridge, one San Francisco woman abandoned her car and jumped off the bridge.

Just before he lept, the first suicide jumper said, "This is where I get off."

Well that was the most depressing article I've read in a long time. Should have been divided into frickin' chapters though.

Suicide sucks. It isn't an end to problems, it's the creation of more problems piled onto everyone else.

Some GGB suicide haiku to sum up the article for those too lazy to read it:

The Golden Gate Bridge
plummeting to your demise
crabs will eat your eyes

Giant San Fran bridge
nine point eight meters per sec.
yep, gravity works

I regret nothing
ok, I regret jumping
but now it's too late

And of course, HS is the end-all test of courage.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Laugh if you want. How many school shootings do I need to show you? How many depressed teens who were pushed over the edge by ostracization?

Kids are f-cking animals! You take the average adult human; remove its moral system, life experiences, sense of reason, and inject it with raging hormones and emotion; and you've got a creature of survival that would make Darwin proud. (And people wonder why we sent 18-year-old kids to Vietnam...)

Intolerance and apathy piss me off. I can only hope I can educate my kids to see past their own deceitful emotions and apply logic and reason to life.

/still listening to The Downward Spiril

The Golden Gate Bridge
plummeting to your demise
crabs will eat your eyes

Giant San Fran bridge
nine point eight meters per sec.
yep, gravity works

That's meters per second squared!

That in my opinion is why I come back to Fark. Sometimes I get to read something I wouldn't normally see, and the payoff is there because it hits me enough to actually think about it.

I remember going to the bridge and the first place I went was Ft. Point, which is the civil war fort at one end, and I remember going to the top of this, which is under the bridge kinda. The force of the wind there was higher I think than it normally is, because it was tough to stand up there. It was probably windy already that day but just standing there made me think how it must be on the bridge.

Now that I've read this, I think of the size of the bridge and people who want to jump, and I shudder to think. I remember seeing nothing but a simple railing.

I don't see how anyone could do it. You've got time after you make your decision. So you're bound to have regrets. Committing yourself to that freefall, it's tough. My first parachute jump was tough, and that was with all the gear and the parachutes.

Sad thing is, suicide is not the answer, because almost all problems can be worked out. But the article did it's job, it made me think.

Oh yeah...high school kids have it SOOO tough. Gimme a farking break. Awww...let's all cry a tear for kids who have food, clean water, books, and motorized transportation to and from school every day.

Suicide is the coward's way out because refusing to fix your problems is cowardly. Killing yourself is easy in comparison. Also, I have zero respect for depressed people, because they make the choice to wallow in self-pity instead of getting up and FIXING things. fark, I used to be semi-suicidal myself, and I KNOW how stupid depressed people are. They just want someone to care about them, when they have nothing to offer...why should I care about a loser? Get off your ass and WORK. Tough love.

a lifetime of farking things up fixed in one determined "splash"

nin

/got nothin'

Hey, I haven't been in high school for a while, but I know that high school kids are pricks (not as much as middle school kids, but they still are)

SineSwiper had it right. Sure, to people way beyond the high school years and all growns up now, the problems that people face in high school are insignificant. When you haven't had the life experience to know the problems are dumb, then of course, they seem really huge at the time. Mix in with that the stupid hormones of puberty, its all adds up to a raging child in an almost adults body.

gromky

So if I understand correctly - Just because you were "semi-suicidal", you know that all depressed people make the choice to wallow in self-pity, and could work their way out of their depression if they wanted to?

gromky

In a forum frequented by idiots, you stand out.

Oh my god.

Texas Death Row Inmates have NO TASTE.

A Bacon Double CheeseBurger? Fried Chicken?

... Idiots...

that was an amazing article. too awed to comment further.

Ade, If I remember, they put up fencing, but only for about the first 100 yards of the South End, the part over the rocks and the shore. I guess there were a disproportionate amount of jumpers there. But in the middle, it's still that 3 foot railing. But I don't see what a barrier would do, besides rob everyone of that wonderful view. It's not like the bridge is an active hazard which must be contained. I think that's the flaw of the writer's reasoning. Let them have it, otherwise they'll just go over to the Bay Bridge.

How about signs encouraging people to jump? Lessens the loser-burden on society.

tinrobot


anybody can summarize the article in 20 words as opposed to 20 paragraphs.

Jumping off bridges scrambles your innards and crabs eat your eyes. Feet first jumpers who survive tend to regret leaping...

There's twenty words for you.

best response ever.

The Death row last meals was posted on fark a few years ago.

No reason for pointing that out.

Florida's answer to the Golden Gate.

You know what was left out of this story?

They might regret their decision half-way, but we sure don't.

Read article, didn't read comments, late to party, feel like posting anyway.

Good riddance to an idiot.

1. I'm not impressed. Buddhist monks set themselves ON FIRE in protests. Beat that, ya limp wristed, cellphone toting, candy gobbling hippie.
2. Or get with WAR. Paraphrasing Patton, nobody ever won by dying for his cause. He wins by making the other bastards die for theirs.

Your idea of fighting the injustices of the world is killing yourself? Sounds like the "Crack Suicide Squad" skit from Monty Python doesn't it...idgit.

I can imagine what goes through their heads, though.
"I thought I had made some mistakes before, but that one takes the cake! SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII *SPLOSH*"

And I won't even start on all the morons who were so eager to be Jumper 500, or Jumper 1000, or whateverthehell.

I say before you commit suicide do the one thing that scares you the most. Because who cares, you fail, you always have that razor waiting for you on your 50th birthday.

/no one gets me

Man, so many smartasses here. Well, I guess not so smart because most of the potential smartass comments are addressed in the article...

"Why save these idiots, they'd just jump anyway"
"If there was a barrier they'd find somewhere else"
"Why DON'T people jump off the Bay Bridge?"
"How do THEY know what people think before they hit the water?"
"People should just overdose on drugs instead"

Then people complain that it's too long! Ya just can't win. I did enjoy the comment about "Bay Aryans" though, I hadn't heard that particular insult before...

What the article DID NOT address:
"What about the San Maeto bridge, huh?"
"I saw The Fugitive and Harrison Ford didn't die when he jumped!"

Almost everyone in the Bay Area knows someone who has jumped, and it is perhaps not surprising that the most common fear among San Franciscans is gephyrophobia, the fear of crossing bridges.

As stated by others, this is complete bullshiat. Are New Yorkers gullible or something?

The view from a section of walkway that juts out over the chord:


(I wasn't thinking morbid thoughts when I took this picture. Just wanted a picture of an ocean texture and playing with depth-of-field.)

Picture taken from the part of the walkway that juts out over the chord (the chord being the area framed between the two vertical suspender cables in the foreground):

Death row last meals was pretty interesting.

For me:

two chili dogs
two seafood tacos
8 McDonalds cheese burgers
chocolate cake
vanilla ice cream
gallon of homogenized vitamin D 1% whole milk

Why? Why?

Because I'm lactose intolerant and I want some one quitting their job when I die due to the mess they got to clean up.

/Joe Rogan rip.

Interesting, well written article.
I never really thought of the GGB this way, even though I've crawled up underneath the southern span since I was in high school 13 years ago. Used it like a jungle gym. I do remembe hearing 'bout the guy who threw his toddler daughter off before he jumped himself....beyond sad.

"I instantly realized that everything in my life that Id thought was unfixable was totally fixableexcept for having just jumped."

/really?

He farking survived?! I feel robbed. It's wrong, just wrong, I tell you. There are people who get hit by cars every day and die tragically, and this stupid son of a biatch survives? I hope he steps on a tack and dies of tetanus.

May I be the first to say eeewwwwww:

"massive bleeding had occurred in both ears, along with apparent grayish brain matter in and around the right ear"

This part was the worst:
"their nine-year-old son had been waiting more than two hours at school for his father to pick him up."

So he was a dead-beat dad in the end?

hi

he wore black gloves, black shoes, black pants, a black T-shirt, and black sunglasses.

black coat, black shoes, black hat, cadillac..

o~/

I agree, great article. There's about a dozen brilliant quotes in there.

Survival of the fittest. Adiosunfit, one seventy-year-old man said in his valedictory, another wrote, Absolutely no reason except I have a toothache.


A commonly held attitude that romanticizes suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge in such terms as aesthetically pleasing and beautiful, while regarding a Bay Bridge suicide as tacky.

Well yeah, you gotta go where the beautiful people are.

Way to eat my punctuation Fark.