The Final Leap (13 page)

One element that Holmes didn't address in his reports was the myth that everyone who jumps does it from the east side, the side facing San Francisco. This was because in 2005 the
San Francisco Chronicle
published a map showing the locations of 833 jumpers whose leaps were witnessed. The locations corresponded to the bridge's 128 light poles, which were added in 1972 and have numbers painted on them. The poles are spaced evenly from the parking lot at Vista Point in Marin County to just before the toll plaza leading into San Francisco. The even-numbered poles are on the west side, illuminating the bike lane, while the odd-numbered poles are on the east side, lighting the pedestrian walkway. The reason why the poles are numbered is because it helps the district track maintenance projects on the bridge. A side benefit is that it assists police officers who respond to the scene of potential jumps. According to the map, the most popular jumping spot by far is light pole number sixty-nine, in the center of the bridge, midway between the two towers, on the east side facing San Francisco. A total of fifty-six people jumped from there. Second most is the light pole next to it, number seventy-one. Thirty-six people chose that point to jump. In total, 713 people whose jumps were witnessed did so from the east side, the San Francisco side. Still, 120 people (14.4 percent) chose the west side, the side facing the Pacific Ocean. The most popular spot on the west side was light pole number sixty-eight, in the center.

Another myth is that everyone jumps from the center of the span, yet a number of individuals hardly ventured out onto the bridge to jump. After they parked their cars at either end, or took a bus or taxi to the bridge, three people jumped from the first light pole on either side, eight more from the second. Based on the map, eighty people jumped close enough to shore that they landed on rocks rather than water. This may have been their intention, or maybe it was a surprise. Intended or not, it was probably a sight that any tourists and other passersby who came along at just that moment have had trouble erasing from their memory. It's not just memories of the jump and of the landing that are hard to forget, but memories of the aftermath, of a body lying broken below. Observing a bridge jump is traumatic enough, but at least within seconds the person disappears from view, swallowed up by the waters of San Francisco Bay, leaving no visible evidence. It's harder, though, to deny the reality of a jump when the person takes off close to shore, strikes solid ground, and lies there for minutes, until a Coast Guard crew arrives and removes the body. The lingering image—and what it means—are difficult to dismiss.

Several years ago a Girl Scout troop from southern California was on the Golden Gate Bridge for a “bridging” ceremony. This is a common event where girls celebrate their transition from Brownies to Junior Girl Scouts. It's almost always held on a bridge, frequently the Golden Gate. During this particular ceremony, a man jumped over the railing right in front of the girls. The ceremony promptly ended, and troop leaders scurried to find counseling services for the witnesses, many of whom were still shaking hours later.

When Holmes's reports were picked up by local media, he was criticized by Bridge District board members and staff. They said that by publicizing Golden Gate Bridge suicides, Holmes was making the problem worse. It was the same thing that Bridge District officials said whenever a story—or when the movie
The Bridge
—came out about the bridge's dark secret.

“The bridge folks don't like it,” Holmes said at the time. “They say I'm ruining the reputation of their bridge. But it's not me. It's the high number of suicides.”

That number is conveyed effectively in Holmes's second report. Instead of names, he listed the dead based on their last-known occupation. The list is mesmerizing in its simplicity. Virtually every profession is represented: accountant, administrator, architect, art director, artist, attorney, auto painter, bank teller, bartender, bell man, bus driver, business owner, card dealer, caregiver, carpenter, cartographer, cashier, chef, child psychologist, chiropractor, clerk, computer engineer, computer programmer, construction worker, cook, counselor, custodian, dentist, driver, editor, educator, electrical engineer, electrician, engineer, factory worker, fashion designer, film animator, financial analyst, firefighter, florist, forklift operator, frame maker, funeral director, gardener, general contractor, glazier, grant administrator, handyman, homemaker, hotel valet, housekeeper, investor, journalist, laborer, landscaper, librarian, loan officer, machinist, maintenance worker, mechanic, metal worker, military personnel, molecular biologist, mortgage broker, musician, nurse, optometrist, painter, paralegal, park supervisor, photographer, physical therapist, physician, plumber, political consultant, postal clerk, printer, probation officer, proofreader, psychiatrist, psychologist, radio talk show host, real estate agent, receptionist, restaurant manager, sales representative, security guard, singer, social worker, software engineer, student, taxi driver, teacher, telemarketer, translator, tree trimmer, tutor, waiter, web designer, welder, and writer. Tellingly, since Golden Gate Bridge jumpers are younger, on average, than people who kill themselves other ways, the most common occupation was student. There were twenty-seven. The second-most common occupation was teacher, at nine.

Looking at the list, one senses that a person could choose any period in the Golden Gate Bridge's history and the result would be the same—a broad cross-section of society. One also senses the impact of each death. In addition to the personal tragedy felt by loved ones, there is the loss that all of us experience when someone dies who had professional skills or the promise of developing them, who was an artist or entertainer and graced us with exhibitions of talent, or who was a service worker, caregiver, or homemaker that others depended on.

The same year that Holmes's second report was released, the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California began listing on its Web site similar details about some Golden Gate Bridge jumpers, gleaned from media sources:

“… president of the Oakland Real Estate board.”

“… was known not only for his professionalism … but also … for incisive comments laced with laconic British wit.”

“… pastor of Ebenezer Lutheran Church.”

“… prominent attorney from Richmond.”

“… former Deb.”

“… a senior member of the American Federation for Clinical Research … served as president of the San Mateo Medical Society.”

“… the eldest son of former White House press secretary Pierre Salinger.”

“… in his pockets were two dollars, a San Francisco Public Library card, two keys, and a bank savings account book with almost no balance.”

Obviously, it is impossible to summarize a human life in just a sentence or two. In obituaries and on tombstones we record the date someone was born and the date that he or she died. What really matters, though, as the poem titled “The Dash” by Linda Ellis notes, is the short line between the two. It is the dash that represents everything the person did, thought, believed in, and stood for during his or her lifetime.

The dash is measured in years. In reading or hearing about someone's death, one's first inclination is to determine the person's age by subtracting the year of birth from the year of death. If the person was substantially older than us, death doesn't seem so bad. His or her time had come, we think. If the person was roughly the same age, we feel a little nervous. We're aware of our own mortality. If the person was substantially younger, it is upsetting even if he or she was a stranger. The natural order of the universe is altered in ways that don't seem right.

Only family members and close friends know fully what a person's dash represents. For the rest of us, it is just a number.

When individuals die prematurely, especially by their own hand, the hardest part for loved ones is knowing that the number could have been higher. There could have been—should have been—much more to the dash. That's the case with people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Their lives are cut short by the bridge's magnetic pull, short railing, pedestrian access, and lack of a suicide deterrent.

A few individuals have been lucky—incredibly lucky—to survive a jump from the bridge. Their insights and experiences inform the rest of us about what it's like to be so desperate, and how it feels to be given a second chance at life. You'll meet several of them in the next chapter.

1
. Suicide prevention advocates discourage use of the phrase “committed suicide.” It implies that suicide is against the law when it's not. No one says that a person “committed cancer.” Instead, the person died by cancer and that's the way suicide deaths should be referred to; thus, “the person died by suicide.” It is also acceptable to say that a person killed himself or herself, or that there was a “completed suicide.”

As soon as I jumped, I wanted to live.

—Kevin Hines, survivor of a
  Golden Gate Bridge jump

If you jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, there's little chance that you'll survive. Statistically, the odds are one in fifty that you'll hit the water at exactly the right angle to live and tell about it. In the stories of the few survivors, one gleans two main themes: first, that suicide is often preventable; second, that a suicide attempt doesn't foretell a future filled with misery and despair. In fact, survivors seem to live fully and sometimes make it their life's work to keep others from making the same mistake. In their minds, and in those of the experts who treat them, suicides can be prevented if doing so becomes a public health priority.

As of 2011, thirty-two people are known to have survived a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. That's a small number considering the much larger number of people who have died. Most members of this ultra-select group suffered serious injuries that required emergency room treatment and resulted in permanent disabilities. What's telling is that only three survivors have subsequently died by suicide (this includes Sarah Birnbaum, an eighteen-year-old who is the only person known to have jumped from the bridge a second time). The rest have chosen to live. In a number of cases, the survivors say that this decision was made the instant they let go of the railing.

The first known survivor, Cornelia Van Ireland, jumped in 1941, four years after the bridge opened. She was twenty-two, a clerk in the state Department of Employment. She also was engaged to be married. As reported by Allen Brown in
Golden Gate
, painters heard her scream and notified the police, who in turn contacted the Coast Guard. As they approached her, hooks ready to snag the body of another bridge jumper, officers on board were astonished to hear her crying faintly for help. While her clothes were shredded by the force of the impact and she had suffered major injuries, including two broken arms, broken vertebrae, and a broken neck, she was still alive.

Afterward she said, “I don't know what happened. I had an irresistible impulse to jump, and suddenly I clambered over the railing and fell into space. I had no particular sensation going down. I know I prayed, but I had no feeling of pressure against me, no sensation of falling. I don't remember when I hit the water, but I know I was conscious. I was conscious every moment.” Doctors thought the big coat she was wearing aided her survival. It ballooned out like a parachute, slowing her descent. Weeks later she was released from the hospital, wearing heavy braces on both arms and a rigid cast on her back. Shortly thereafter she married her fiancée as planned.

Tom Tawzer, age sixteen, is the second known person to survive a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. A runaway from Liver-more High School (California), Tawzer was living with a friend in Oakland until the friend decided to leave town—alone. In a coffee shop Tawzer wrote a letter to his mother saying that he knew his parents were looking for him, but he couldn't return home and hoped they would understand. Then he asked an elderly woman which bus he should take to the Golden Gate Bridge. He had never been to the bridge before and didn't know what bridge security was like. He walked toward the center of the span, ever alert to the possibility of being caught. After saying a short prayer, he stepped over the rail and felt briefly like he was flying, wind lifting his arms over his head. He doesn't remember hitting the water, and almost was run over by a massive cargo ship before a Coast Guard crew rescued him. Outside his room at Letterman Hospital, the hallway was filled with reporters who were eager for an interview. Tawzer told Nora Gallagher, a freelance writer, that when he saw them the realization suddenly hit him: “I thought, oh my God, I'm going to live. Now what?”

Gene Robens, James Layton, and Thomas C. Baker III survived attempts in the 1960s, and there were ten more bridge jump survivors in the 1970s (five males and five females), seven in the 1980s (four males and three females), and ten in the past 20 years (seven males, one female, and two unidentified). Nearly all were in their teens or early twenties when they jumped, and their youth probably aided their chances of survival.

“Dying was not the issue,” James Layton told Gallagher, who profiled him, Tom Tawzer, and a third, unidentified bridge jump survivor in
San Francisco
magazine. “It was really living.” When Layton was twelve, his father jumped out of a five-story building, dying two days later. In high school, Layton realized that he was different from his classmates. For one thing, he was small and frail-looking. For another thing, he was gay. The day before he jumped, in 1969 at age twenty, a medium visited his classroom. Layton wrote on a piece of paper, “Will I make it through the Golden Doors and will I be united with my soul mate?” The medium answered, “Yes.” Layton jumped by 1
P.M.
the next day.

John Adams, a twenty-one-year-old student at Stanford, jumped in 1976. Of the survivors, he's the only one who fell on land—the area of sand and rocks below the north tower known as Lime Point. When a Bridge Patrol lieutenant arrived at the scene, he was astonished to see that Adams was alive. The fact that Adams was wearing a ski jacket when he jumped may have helped by filling with air and reducing his speed. Also, he had consumed eleven tablets of a depressant and was heavily drugged so his body probably was relaxed. His only injuries were two collarbone separations.