Iconic Golden Gate Bridge to Get $45M Suicide Net

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 12:15am

Talk about a waste of money!!!

If someone is REALLY going to commit suicide, and the Golden Gate Bridge is not "available" as a suicide escape, they will find another way to kill themselves. Trust me.

This is absolutely a waste of money.
Surely this will cure all...oy

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 12:25am

You can even walk out of the net...

If people are going to kill themselves then they're going to do it...

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 1:37am

From The New Yorker some years ago:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/13/031013fa_fact?currentPage=all

I find this snippet of the article particularly moving:

"Kevin Briggs, a friendly, sandy-haired motorcycle patrolman, has a knack for spotting jumpers and talking them back from the edge; he has coaxed in more than two hundred potential jumpers without losing one over the side. He won the Highway Patrol’s Marin County Uniformed Employee of the Year Award last year. Briggs told me that he starts talking to a potential jumper by asking, “How are you feeling today?” Then, “What’s your plan for tomorrow?” If the person doesn’t have a plan, Briggs says, “Well, let’s make one. If it doesn’t work out, you can always come back here later.”

Mr. Briggs inspired Meg Hutchinson's song "Gatekeeper," which I find to be extremely moving, having lost several people very close to me to suicide.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 10:39am

"Several"? My God, so sorry to hear that, AEA. Thanks for reminding me of that article. The passage that moved me most was this:

"Motto had a patient who committed suicide from the Golden Gate in 1963, but 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.’ ”

Motto sat back in his chair. “That was it,” he said. “It’s so needless, the number of people who are lost.” "

A barrier is a pointless waste of money. A smile is so much cheaper, not to mention more effective.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 10:49am

I don't think it's so much to the net is to prevent suicide as it is to prevent people using the Golden Gate Bridge to commit suicide.

[tazber]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 10:51am

I don't think the net is meant to stop people committing suicide. It's meant to keep people from comitting suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge.

It sounds like more of a PR consideration than an actual attempt to save lives.

and ghostlight is right, a smile and maybe a willingness to listen is sometimes all that's needed

Updated On: 8/18/10 at 10:51 AM

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 11:04am

There was an incident at work last week. This week, I've noticed myself walking around the halls smiling a lot more cause you never know when someone might be needing a little pick-me-up.

Updated On: 8/18/10 at 11:04 AM

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 8/18/10 at 10:52pm

"This is very much overdue," Eve Meyer, executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention, told AOL News. She said the bridge has long attracted suicides "because the means are so accessible.""

The means are so accessible?? There are plenty of other (and easier) ways to commit suicide than jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Maybe it's the attempt to commit suicide at a "famous" place but it certainly not even close to the most accessible.

"The city has also attempted other methods to stop the suicides. The bridge has 13 call boxes labeled "crisis counseling,"..."

I'd like to know how many times those call boxes were used. I'd say slim to none. If people are going to do it, they will.
This 45 million can be used in so many valuable ways and this just isn't one of them.

"You can even walk out of the net..."

Well, we don't know exactly where it will end but I suppose if it's properly attached at either end, it would be impossible. (Obviously I don't know the logistics or how the net would be set up.) The cherry picker truck to rescue the 'would be suicides' is almost laughable.
With the net in place, sadly, it could almost become a game-- see who can actually find a way to DIE jumping off the bridge.

I say leave well enough alone. Yes, it's sad but if it's going to happen, the Golden Gate Bridge net prevention is not going to stop them from finding other ways.

My friend committed suicide and for the longest time (and sometimes I still do)I believed that I could have prevented it. In realistic terms, I could not have. I was 1,000 miles away and she did not mention the thought of killing herself. She did mention that she and her bf had a fight and her bf said that she should "jump off her balcony" but then she seemed to laugh it off. How often do you hear (Oh, go jump off a bridge! And yet...you don't.) This just happened to be the straw that broke the camels back. Had I'd known that, I would have called for help. But, in time, she would have found another way if indeed she was insistent upon killing herself.
RIP Ariel.

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 1:09am

There was a documentary made about people jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. I won't link to it here, but I know at least the trailer - and I think the whole movie - was available on youtube. It's very sad and very disturbing. A net may not stop someone if they are intent on following through, but I would imagine that if you were in charge of an edifice and there was enough footage of people committing suicide from said edifice to make a feature-length documentary, some effort would be needed on your part to curtail that.

I would also like to believe (perhaps naively) that of all the ways to commit suicide, jumping is the most rash and spur-of-the-moment method. ESPECIALLY on something as awe-inspiring as the Golden Gate Bridge. A net, while not insurmountable, might provide a second layer of... consideration(?)... for someone who might not have considered other avenues when faced with the expanse of San Francisco Bay.

I don't think it's going to stop anyone intent on committing suicide, but I don't think it's a bad idea, either.

[Mekroth]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 1:47pm

The movie is called "The Bridge" and it's available to watch on Hulu. It's certainly a difficult movie to watch, as it contains footage of many real suicides, but it's a fascinating insight into the many different mindsets and reasonings of the people who decide to end their lives there.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 2:14pm

You're being very much like your old self, Sweet Q, displaying a remarkable lack of empathy.

[AbbaRabbit]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 6:32pm

my neighbor's uncle jumped off the golden gate bridge. it was really horrible. he didn't die right away. he died almost a week later in the hospital as a result of the salt water damaging his internal organs beyond repair. from what my neighbor told me, he curled up in a ball in the air hoping that it would prevent him from dying, because he had a change of heart the second he stepped off the bridge.

don't they have phones on the bridge now? like "if you feel like you are in crisis pick up this phone to be connected to someone who can help" type of phones? i know not everyone is going to use them, but there have been other failed attempts in the past to stop people from jumping off the bridge, right?

a net may seem like a dare to some people.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 6:51pm

How much is one life worth? Does the net need to prevent one, two, or ten suicides to be worth it?

[strummergirl]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 7:03pm

Doing some amateur research the suicide attempts off the Golden Gate Bridge average one every two weeks.

It may not be the easiest and most accessible but it makes a big statement. Cornell University this past year had a crisis of an unusually high rate of people committing suicide, notably by way of jumping off the bridge near the gorges (and if you haven't seen the gorges in Ithaca, it is hard to make a bigger statement than landing in such shallow water). They recently put up a fence on each side of the bridge:

Updated On: 8/19/10 at 07:03 PM

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 8/19/10 at 7:12pm

You know, if you want to do a cost benefit analysis of the costs of investigation of suicide attempts, as well as the traffic disruptions/delays and expenses, I would hazard to guess those costs would add up pretty quickly and over time, well, maybe the price would not look that crazy.

Coupled with the fact that turning off a big old "Kill Me" beacon is not a bad thing in my mind.

I know a few folks who got caught up in the moment and tried to kill themselves (and luckily, they failed). Given the chance to reflect and think about what they tried to do, they regretted the attempt.

So, I don't think this is a bad thing. Expensive, yeah. But, not all suicide attempts are long-plotted events. Sometimes, people are depressed and do it on a whim. Maybe it saves a a few people a year from their worst moments. I am OK with that.