SAN FRANCISCO– Kevin Hines regretted jumping from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge the moment his hands let go of the railing 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 while struggling with bipolar disorder, one of about 40 people who survived after jumping from the bridge.
Hines, his father and a group of parents who lost their children to suicide at the bridge have relentlessly advocated for a solution for 20 years, encountering resistance from people who love the iconic monument with its sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean and its beautiful views of did not want to change the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco Bay.
They finally got their wish Wednesday when officials announced that crews had installed stainless steel nets on both sides of the 1.7-mile bridge.
“If it had just been there, I would have been stopped by the police and gotten the help I needed immediately, and never broke my back, never shattered three vertebrae, and never been on this path that I was on” , says Hines, who has now committed suicide. in favor of prevention. “I am so grateful that a small group of like-minded people never gave up on something so important.”
Since the bridge opened in 1937, nearly 2,000 people have fallen to their deaths.
City officials approved the project more than a decade ago, and work began on the 20-foot-wide stainless steel mesh nets in 2018. But efforts to complete them have been repeatedly postponed until now.
The nets, which are placed six meters below the deck of the bridge, are not visible to cars crossing the bridge. But pedestrians standing near the rails can see them. They are built with marine-grade stainless steel that can withstand the harsh conditions, including salt water, fog and strong winds that often shroud the striking orange structure at the mouth of San Francisco Bay.
“We have installed a continuous physical suicide barrier across the entire length of the 2.8 kilometer bridge on the east and west sides. The bridge is sealed,” said Dennis Mulligan, general manager of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
The barriers are already working as intended, he added.
As the project neared completion in 2023, the number of people jumping dropped from an annual average of 30 to 14, with the deaths occurring where crews had not yet finished installing the barriers, he said.
Some people still jumped into the net and crews helped them out. A handful of them jumped from the net into the ocean and died, he added.
The nets are intended to deter anyone from jumping and to limit the death rate of those who still do, even though they are likely to be seriously injured.
“It's a stainless steel mesh, so it's like jumping into a cheese grater,” Mulligan said. “It's not soft. It's not rubber. It doesn't stretch.”
“We want people to know that if you come here, it will hurt if you jump,” he added.
Firefighters in both San Francisco and Marin counties are trained to climb down and rescue anyone who jumps into the nets. For now, iron workers who maintain the bridge and are trained in rescue techniques are carrying out many of the rescues. On deck, members of a bridge patrol try to spot people contemplating suicide and prevent them from jumping. Last year they stopped 149 people from jumping, Mulligan said.
Shortly after the bridge opened eighty years ago, bridge officials were first asked to do something about the suicides. But it was a small group of parents, including Hines' father, Patrick, who founded the Bridge Rail Foundation in 2006 and got the job done.
The name comes from the group's demand to raise the four-foot railing along the bridge. Members often appeared at bridge meetings holding large photos of their loved ones.
But a public comment campaign found that most people did not want to raise the railing because it would block the expansive view from the bridge.
An architectural firm recommended the nets based on the success a similar net had in preventing suicides in Bern, Switzerland, where officials installed one on a popular terrace overlooking a river, said Bridge Rail President Paul Muller Foundation.
In 2008, bridge officials began exploring the idea of installing nets and after creating a design, officials had to come up with the money to build them. In 2014, Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District officials approved the project for $76 million.
Construction costs have risen to $224 million, Mulligan said. In a lawsuit filed against the district that year, Shimmick Construction Co. said. and Danny's Construction Co., the project's general contractors, that the netting and other work on the bridge as part of the project would cost approximately $400 million.
Changes and deficiencies in the government's design of the networks and the deterioration of the bridge's maintenance platforms drove up the construction price, the companies said. The contractors say they lost about $100 million on the project and spent another $100 million paying for expenses and labor to ensure project completion.
“At no time have we let the lawsuit or the fact that we have not received everything we are owed get in the way of our work,” Shimmick CEO Steve Richards said in a statement.
“Our dispute is with the district,” he added. “The people of California should not be deprived of their safety net because of the District's behavior.”
A hearing on the dispute is scheduled for June. Mulligan said the bridge district filed a countersuit in October.
Critics of the project say a lot of money is being spent on the nets to deter people who are determined to end their lives and who will simply find another method to do so.
But proponents of the nets, including the Bridge Rail Foundation, point to studies from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley that show most survivors will not attempt suicide again. They say ending easy access to lethal means is crucial to preventing suicides.
Dayna Whitmer, whose son Matthew jumped to his death from the Golden Gate Bridge in 2007, said she believes her son, whose body has never been found, might have been scared off by the nets.
“When a lot of people are so focused on one method, they don't see anything else around them,” she said. “And when they get to the point where they can't do it anymore, they just throw up their hands and walk away. And I think he would have done that too.”
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Associated Press reporter Haven Daley contributed to this story.
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This story contains a discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988.