The Final Leap (15 page)

In the hospital he learned that his jump had been witnessed, and that the Coast Guard had gotten to him in seven minutes. The quick response prevented both drowning and hypothermia since the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean are cold, about fifty degrees. He stayed in the hospital five days, then was released after promising to seek professional help. His wife, “who is a hero in my eyes,” he says, went to therapy with him for five months, after which he was cleared, his depression gone. He was able to live a normal life for the first time in many years.

Nineteen-year-old Kevin Hines is another survivor. He jumped in September 2000. Hines started taking a medication called Tegretol at age ten after he had had an epileptic attack. It seemed to work, enabling him to participate on the Riordan High School (San Francisco) football and wrestling teams. When he was sixteen, he was taken off the medication because he hadn't had any further episodes. That same year, his mother and father, who had adopted him when he was nine months old, separated. The separation was traumatic for Hines, who was close to both parents. What no one knew at the time was that Hines was bipolar. In addition to treating epilepsy, Tegretol acts as a mood stabilizer. Without the medication, Hines experienced extreme manic-depressive swings. Overnight he changed from a sensitive youth who loved acting in school plays and was a tough athlete to being irritable and hard to control.

In January 2000 he had a big fight with his mother and moved in with his father, with whom he constantly butted heads. Then his drama teacher died by suicide and Hines's world was turned topsy-turvy. He was prescribed new medication and ended up, by his count, taking fourteen pills per day. He also had weekly therapy. Even so, his mood swings got worse.

He bought a knife and began cutting his wrist, intending to bleed to death. A last-minute change of heart led him to drop the knife, cover the wounds, and not tell anyone. Yet he continued to visit his dark place. On Friday, September 22, two days before he jumped, his girlfriend broke up with him. Over the weekend, he had hallucinations and heard voices. Sunday night, he wrote seven versions of a suicide note, trying to achieve a tone that didn't sound so angry—angry with himself, with his parents, with the world. The final version ended simply, “All. Please forgive me.”

His father, Patrick Hines, a banker, sensed Kevin's torment. The night before he jumped, Pat was worried about Kevin and wanted to take him to the hospital. Kevin said no, he was okay— fully aware that he had just written a suicide note and was planning to kill himself the next day. The following morning Pat Hines told Kevin that he wanted to take him to work, that he was worried about him. Kevin said he had gotten a good night's sleep and was feeling better, and needed to go to school.

His father dropped him off at San Francisco City College, where Kevin was a freshman. Kevin kissed his father on the check, certain it'd be the last time he'd see him. He also gave his father a rare hug.

Kevin went to his first-period class, but left before the end. He took a bus to a Walgreens pharmacy to buy his last meal— Skittles and Starbursts candy. Then he caught another bus to the Golden Gate Bridge. Sitting in the rear, it dawned on him that he really was going to do it, he really was going to die. What happened next Hines has told hundreds of times, to reporters and audiences. It was 10
A.M.
and the bridge was full of activity. There were walkers, joggers, bikers, and tourists. Red-eyed and distraught, Hines decided that if even one person asked him what was wrong, he wouldn't jump; he'd tell the person everything. Midway across the span he stopped and looked down more than two hundred feet to the water. His face was streaked with tears.

For thirty-five or forty minutes, he stood at the railing, sizing up the spot. It wasn't too close to a pillar. He'd hit the water and die. People passed by without saying a word, then a woman with a German accent approached. She asked Hines if he'd take her picture.

“I thought, ‘What? Lady, I'm going to kill myself, are you crazy?' ”

She was wearing sunglasses, he recalls, her hair was blowing in the wind, and she was probably a tourist. “All she could see,” he says, “was this guy standing right where she wanted her picture taken.” He took several pictures of her, then gave her back her camera. As she walked away, Hines decided, “That's it. I'm going. Nobody cares.” His backpack was on the bridge. He left a sign next to it that read, “The note is in here.”

Like Baldwin, Hines didn't climb over the railing and pause on the chord. Instead, he took a few steps back, ran, and catapulted over the side. Instantly, he regretted it. As importantly, he knew that he had mere seconds to save himself. He threw his head back to hit the water feet first, at a slight angle. If he had hit even a fraction of an inch differently, doctors told him afterward, he would have severed his spinal cord and drowned. As it was, he shattered two vertebrae in his back and the pieces shot through some of his organs.

After falling the equivalent of twenty-five stories, he plunged deep underwater. It was dark and scary. At the same time, he marveled that he was still alive. He didn't know that that was possible. He couldn't move his legs so he used his arms to swim to the surface, toward the light. When his head broke through, he took a big gulp of air. He tried to call for help, but his words were lost in the current, which was sweeping him out to sea. The pain was overwhelming, and he felt himself sinking below the water. A large animal brushed against his legs, and Hines felt a new fear. Great white sharks have attacked people in San Francisco Bay. Even worse than drowning was the thought of being eaten alive. The animal kept circling around him, keeping him afloat. Hines believes now that it was a seal who was acting as a guardian angel.

Hines's jump was witnessed and the Coast Guard was able to get to him within minutes. He was taken to Marin General Hospital. His mother, Debbie, arrived first. Although Kevin was battered and highly sedated, he managed to mumble, “Hey, Ma. Hi.” Pat Hines arrived a few minutes later. Kevin's first words upon seeing his father were to say that he was sorry. Pat, whom his son says isn't given to showing his emotions, broke down in tears. The moment served as an epiphany, causing Kevin to think that he had to fight his mental illness every day for the sake of his family, until he got better.

Kevin Hines was in Marin General for three weeks, during which time doctors inserted a metal plate in his back to replace the vertebrae he shattered. Pat Hines slept next to him, on a cot. After that, Kevin was transferred to a psychiatric unit at St. Francis Memorial Hospital, where he spent several months.

Since his jump, Kevin is most astounded when people ask him why he didn't shoot himself instead of leaping from the bridge. His response reinforces the fact that suicidal people often fixate on one means of death. “I'm like, ‘What are you—nuts?' ” he told a
Time
reporter in describing his reaction. “That scares the crap out of me. Pills were gross. I had already cut myself, it hurt like hell, and I hated seeing blood.”

He had no money to get back on the bus that day and no bus pass. If he had had to pay even one dollar to walk on the bridge, he wouldn't have been able to jump. He also wouldn't have been able to get home after a thwarted attempt, a fact that he thinks about now.

“If there was a barrier,” he said, “I would have had to go tell someone, or I would have been caught by the California Highway Patrol trying to climb over the thing. I would have been saved and put in a mental hospital, and then I'd be at home, dealing with my bipolar, hopefully doing it the right way.”

Since their jumps, the lives of Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines have changed dramatically. The first thing that changed was their attitude.

“Before, I didn't want to get better,” Baldwin said. “I had become consumed by my depression.” Afterward, he wanted to live. Despite feeling himself falling every time he closed his eyes, he never suffered flashbacks or nightmares. He was now willing to let others help him. Most importantly, his wife stood by him, determined to save his life. He shared his pain with her and she provided support. He also had therapy—only five sessions, but that seemed to be enough. His depression lifted and hasn't returned. There have been episodes of anxiety since, but nothing permanent.

Another change was that unlike his first suicide attempt, when he swallowed painkillers and beer next to a stream, his bridge jump was public. Everyone knew about it. The story had been reported by the press, and the circumstances leading to his attempt—the depression he lived with—no longer was hidden.

Five months after the jump, an architect who was sympathetic hired Baldwin as a draftsman. Seven years later, Baldwin was offered a position teaching drafting classes at Bret Harte Union High School in Angels Camp, California. Angels Camp is a small, one-time Gold Rush town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The miners left after the lode was exhausted, and today the biggest attractions are a handful of wineries and several caverns offering guided spelunking tours.

Baldwin has been at the high school for twenty years. Several weeks into each new school year, after his freshman students get to know him, he tells them about his suicide attempt. It's not something he's proud of, but it's also not something he tries to hide. Kids are smart and likely would find out anyway. The best thing, he believes, is to be up-front about it so that he can move on to other subjects. It happened before he started teaching, when he was severely depressed. He made a foolish mistake, and is fortunate to be alive.

I asked him whether incoming students expect to hear the story now, and how they react to it.

“The older kids are always asking, ‘When are you telling the story?' ” he said, “so most of my students do expect it, but some are surprised. The kids are awesome about the story. I have them listen to me tell the story of the day I jumped and then they can ask any question they want and I answer it truthfully. They are always very respectful when I tell it.”

When I asked him whether he had any negative reactions from parents, he responded, “I have never had a discussion with a parent—ever. It could be they never hear about it [but] I doubt that.… Some parents may not know how to bring it up.”

When he first arrived at the school, Baldwin was shown the classroom where he would be teaching. When he opened the drawer of his new desk, he found an old engineer's drawing. It was of the Golden Gate Bridge. The drawing had all of the measurements, like a blueprint. Baldwin decided that it must be a sign, and decided to display it. He still does, but says, “It's getting pretty ratty over the years.”

I had read in one of his interviews that he divided his life in halves, the half before the jump and afterward, and asked him if it was still true. He said it is. Sometimes he and his wife will be talking and one of them will ask, “When was that?” Then they'll remember that it was before the jump or after the jump.

A high point of his life was being able to give his daughter her high school diploma. She graduated from the same high school where Baldwin teaches. She was too young—only three—to remember Baldwin's jump, but he has always talked openly about it with her. It helps that the outcome was positive and that she never saw him when he was depressed and wanting to disappear. Today she's in her fourth year of teaching primary school, and in 2010 she got married “to a wonderful young man,” Baldwin says. He considers himself the luckiest guy in the world.

Kevin Hines's life is similarly divided, although he doesn't think of it that way. Before his jump he was despondent, convinced that he was worthless. After his jump he found a purpose—advocating for a barrier on the bridge and educating people about mental illness.

I was curious whether opposition to the barrier has surprised him. “Never once,” he says. “We live in a culture that dubs certain public health issues, certainly mental health issues, and especially suicide attempts in general, as ‘somebody else's problem.' ”

Hines has become something of a celebrity, regularly interviewed by national publications and network television whenever there's a story on Golden Gate Bridge suicides. He's in demand as a public speaker, too, and he has an agent, although he'll appear for free if it's an audience—such as young people—that he wants to reach.

Unfortunately, from his point of view, reporters keep asking him to relive the moment when he hurtled over the railing. What went through his mind as he was falling? Did he black out before impact or was he conscious when his body slammed into the water? How did he feel when he plunged below the surface and realized he was still alive? What did he say to the people who rescued him? It's an experience that's hard to imagine, and the fact that he survived it when the vast majority of people don't gives him a unique perspective. At the same time, his life wasn't spared, he feels, just so he can tell people what it's like to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. What's important to him is to stop others from jumping.

Several years ago, at a suicide prevention fundraising event, Hines was approached by a sixteen-year-old boy. The boy had just spent $300 of his own money to buy a large, color photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge in a silent auction. He told Hines that at one time he had considered jumping from the bridge, too, and asked Hines to sign his picture. These are the moments that Hines lives for now. He wrote on the back, “Stay up. And never look down.” Then he added his signature.

His parents have different opinions about his advocacy. His father believes it has been therapeutic. “Surviving, and having the ability to talk about it, gave Kevin a reason for life,” Pat Hines told a
San Francisco Chronicle
reporter in 2005. “In many ways, this issue validates his existence.”

His mother, a nurse, worries that Kevin is going to make a career out of it, that when he's fifty years old he's still going to be talking about a single, stupid moment in his life that happened thirty years earlier. She has been quoted as saying that it's time for him to move on. Moreover, she's not convinced that a suicide barrier is the best investment. Rather, Debbie Hines thinks that the money would be better spent treating mental illness, attacking the problem at its root.