I'd like to start this diary by asking you, the reader, to participate in a little exercise. Please indulge me on this one.
I'd like you to try and envision in your mind the city of San Francisco. What do you see? Alcatraz? Coit Tower? Cable cars? Hippie drum circles at Golden Gate Park?
Well, if you're like many people, one image that came to your mind was the Golden Gate Bridge. Admittedly, this was not a very fair experiment; the title of the diary probably gave you a pretty strong hint as to what this diary was about.
According to Frommer's, the Golden Gate Bridge is the most photographed bridge in the world. It's a symbolic gateway between the US and the vast blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. And I can certainly vouch for its aesthetics. And though its traffic is around a third of what the Bay Bridge gets, it's the Golden Gate Bridge that has the allure. Between the aesthetics, the symbolism, and the accessibility to pedestrians, it's understandable that the Golden Gate Bridge is such an inspiring and popular landmark. And, as you may know, the Golden Gate Bridge is the site of the most suicides in the United States and ranks second on the list of worldwide suicide destinations.
Before we delve into this topic further, I'd like to state for the record that I live in San Francisco, and am an amateur photographer. Most of my shooting is done around the city, and for a variety of reasons, the Golden Gate Bridge is one of my favorite subjects.
And so perhaps I should be one of the people vehemently opposing the addition of physical barriers, the same desire held by the approximately 75% of respondents to a San Francisco chronicle poll taken September of last year.
And I admit that until recently, I was mostly ambivalent with regards to the issue, ultimately leaning against changing the Bridge. And I had some preconceptions that led me to feel that way. The most salient of these was the belief that if someone couldn't jump, they'd just find another way to kill themselves. After all, it seems a jumper must be committed to the end goal if they're determined to go to the Bridge, jump over the railing, and fall the 200 feet to die of drowning or from a collapsed rib cage. Right?
Nope. I was completely and utterly wrong about this issue, and I have to thank The New Yorker for having published a rather groundbreaking article that discusses the topic of Golden Gate jumpers in frank and honest manner. This article was written back in 2003 and can be credited for doing an incredible job raising awareness and disseminating facts that are startling enough to change more than a few minds.
Of course, we're reminded about some of the numbers of people that have died: at least 1,250 since the Bridge opened. On average, a person commits suicide by jumping from the Bridge every two weeks. But beyond the cold statistics, this article is full of some truly heartbreaking stories. (Warning, if you're squeamish or easily disturbed, I suggest skipping these.)
On December 17, 2001, fourteen-year-old Marissa Imrie, a petite and attractive straight-A student who had planned to become a psychiatrist, left her second-period class at Santa Rosa High School, took a hundred and-fifty-dollar taxi ride to the Golden Gate, and jumped to her death. Though Marissa was always very hard on herself and had lately complained of severe headaches and insomnia, her mother, Renée Milligan, had no inkling of her plans. "She called us 'the glue girls,' we were so close," Milligan told me. "She'd never spoken about the bridge, and we'd never even visited it."
..the jump that affected him most occurred in the seventies. "I went to this guy's apartment afterward with the assistant medical examiner," he told me. "The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, 'I'm going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.'"
When Paul Alarab was pulled from the Bay at 11:34 a.m., he was unconscious and badly bruised. The impact had ripped off his left glove and his right shoe. The Coast Guard crew, wearing their standard jumper-retrieval garb to protect against leaking body fluids—Tyvex biohazard suits, masks, gloves, and safety goggles—began C.P.R. Half an hour later, Alarab was pronounced dead. Gary Tindel, the assistant coroner of Marin County, who examined the body on the dock at Fort Baker, at the north end of the bridge, observed that "massive bleeding had occurred in both ears, along with apparent grayish brain matter in and around the right ear." Tindel brought Alarab’s antiwar statement and his cell phone back to the coroner’s office in San Rafael. Soon afterward, the cell phone rang. It was Alarab’s ex-wife, Rubina Coton: their nine-year-old son had been waiting more than two hours at school for his father to pick him up.
"May I speak with Paul?" Coton asked.
"I’m sorry," Tindel said. "You can't."
This New Yorker article evoked such a powerful reaction that the next year, a man named Eric Steele started collecting footage for an extremely controversial documentary, The Bridge, which was released in 2006. This is the trailer:
During the time he spent filming, there were 24 known suicides committed, of which Steele captured 23, in addition to conducting interviews with the relatives of those who jumped. As you might expect, many people expressed outrage over the film, including some critics, one of whom summed it up thusly:
This could be the most morally loathsome film ever made.
Others were more open to look beyond the questionable production techniques and macabre subject matter:
This will get flack for being a "snuff" film -- but the real tragedy is how suicide is often hidden away. This film brings it out in the open.
Without a doubt, the movie received more attention in the greater scheme of things than the New Yorker article, but despite the imagery provided by the documentary and visceral reactions it can evoke, I still consider the original New Yorker article more provocative. And that's because that while the article could have gotten its point across by just giving a few more tragic anecdotes, hoping to pull the heart-strings of San Franciscans and readers in general enough to suggest they reconsider their views, the article goes further.
Yes, the accounts I've quoted are compelling and disturbing indeed. But the single aspect of the article that shocked me the most involved the results of a scientific study which soundly eviscerated my preconceived notions about suicide:
A familiar argument against a barrier is that thwarted jumpers will simply go elsewhere. In 1953, a bridge supervisor named Mervin Lewis rejected an early proposal for a barrier by saying it was preferable that suicides jump into the Bay than dive off a building "and maybe kill somebody else." (It's a public-safety issue.) Although this belief makes intuitive sense, it is demonstrably untrue. Dr. Seiden’s study, "Where Are They Now?," published in 1978, followed up on five hundred and fifteen people who were prevented from attempting suicide at the bridge between 1937 and 1971. After, on average, more than twenty-six years, ninety-four per cent of the would-be suicides were either still alive or had died of natural causes. "The findings confirm previous observations that suicidal behavior is crisis-oriented and acute in nature," Seiden concluded; if you can get a suicidal person through his crisis—Seiden put the high-risk period at ninety days—chances are extremely good that he won’t kill himself later. (Emphasis added.)
Just think about that for a moment. If we could prevent more people from making the jump, chances are very high -- extraordinary, even, that those people could make it through their crises and go on to perhaps find happiness.
In 2006, due largely to the impact of The Bridge, there was a renewed cry for a suicide prevention barrier on the Bridge. And I'm pleased to report that there has been progress on this front, as there is now a project moving forward, called rather verbosely the "Golden Gate Bridge Physical Suicide Deterrent System Project."
However, I'm leery about it at this point, as it seems this project has been de-prioritized or at least that it has fallen behind schedule. For instance, their Web site's FAQ page states that the project should be completed in "late 2008," which has obviously come and gone. Projects frequently take longer than estimated, but that this page hasn't been updated in more than four months is disconcerting, to say the least.
But there are a number of proposals listed that meet the numerous requirements set forth for this project.
The requirements list includes preventing suicides obviously, but also includes ensuring that there is no loss of stability in wind, that security forces aren't hindered, that it's cost-effective, and that it keeps any potentially negative aesthetic qualities to an absolute minimum, among others.
I realize that any change to this Bridge will elicit a vociferous outcry from a huge number of people, both in San Francisco and elsewhere. So I'm pleased that the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District has come this far in moving toward a solution. I hope it doesn't get lost in the shuffle between a financial crisis and a Federal stimulus plan that could cause officials to focus their efforts elsewhere. And so I'm going to make sure to press our officials for a solution.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a widely recognized landmark; just another thing that helps to characterize San Francisco in a beautiful way. But in San Francisco, we're also known for being extra compassionate to disadvantaged groups. People who are so depressed or devastated that they seek a swift end their lives need help; they need someone to talk to; they need someone to flash them a smile. I love the Bridge, and I love its distinct look. If there's a physical change to the Bridge, it won't be well-received.
But if it saves dozens or hundreds of lives, I think it's a change I can live with.