Denialism

[UPDATED] GG Bridge Suicide Net: Nanny State or Smart Intervention? (Or Both?)

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by

Chris
in

It seems as though officials have been arguing forever about whether to erect an anti-suicide net along the Golden Gate Bridge. On Friday, the bridge directors voted 14-1 in favor of creating such a net:

…the stainless-steel net system, which would be placed 20 feet below the deck, and would collapse around anyone who jumped into it, making it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to leap to their death…

This has been a fairly divisive issue in San Francisco. Anti-netters argue that that the net will just cause people to kill themselves elsewhere (perhaps by jumping from a building in a business district), that the net will uglify the bridge, and that it will be expensive. They’re probably right on the last two arguments.

Pro-netters probably have the better public health argument. Among them are people who jumped from the bridge during a bout of depression and lived to regret it. The New Yorker ran an awesome story about the history of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers several years ago, which included anecdotes about those who jumped and survived:

Survivors often regret their decision in midair, if not before. Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines both say they hurdled over the railing, afraid that if they stood on the chord they might lose their courage. Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable–except for having just jumped.”

It still will be years before this net is complete. It will be interesting to see, if this intervention is effective, who the last to jump will be. The Golden Gate has inspired some very weird culture, and I’m willing to bet that there will be a group of people attempting to jump in the last days that it is possible.

UPDATED

I just went for a run which takes me to a view of the GG Bridge. The warships are in the Bay this weekend for Fleet Week, which is exciting.

The Chemist, in comments below, remarks about how callous we are as a society to know about this suicide problem for so long, and to do nothing about it.

But I’d argue doing nothing about it is very San Francisco, and as a non-native, I don’t share this feeling, but there is a feeling here that if people decide to off themselves, it’s their business. There’s a documentary about GGB suicides called The Bridge where they interview friends of people who jumped, and I was struck by how people just kind of accepted others’ decisions to die. It was strange for me, but there is a spirit of individualism here that just does not know boundaries…

Just check out this excerpt from the New Yorker story linked to above. There is a different mentality here, to say the least:

The [suicide] coverage intensified in 1973, when the Chronicle and the Examiner initiated countdowns to the five-hundredth recorded jumper. Bridge officials turned back fourteen aspirants to the title, including one man who had “500” chalked on a cardboard sign pinned to his T-shirt. The eventual “winner,” who eluded both bridge personnel and local-television crews, was a commune-dweller tripping on LSD.

In 1995, as No. 1,000 approached, the frenzy was even greater. A local disk jockey went so far as to promise a case of Snapple to the family of the victim. That June, trying to stop the countdown fever, the California Highway Patrol halted its official count at 997. In early July, Eric Atkinson, age twenty-five, became the unofficial thousandth; he was seen jumping, but his body was never found.

Ken Holmes, the Marin County coroner, told me, “When the number got to around eight hundred and fifty, we went to the local papers and said, ‘You’ve got to stop reporting numbers.’ ” Within the last decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Association of Suicidology have also issued guidelines urging the media to downplay the suicides. The Bay Area media now usually report bridge jumps only if they involve a celebrity or tie up traffic. “We weaned them,” Holmes said. But, he added, “the lack of publicity hasn’t reduced the number of suicides at all.”

Comments

  1. The Chemist

    You know, I think it speak to the incredible callousness of our culture that a bridge could become known for suicide, but it takes us decades to put a stop to it. All the while it’s become the butt of jokes in movies and popular culture, even a gag in cartoons.

    Reply
  2. Marilyn Mann

    A kid I went to elementary and junior high school with jumped off the Golden Gate bridge. I think this is something worth trying.

    Reply
  3. Johnny Vector

    I think Stephen Page said it best:

    Near where I live there's a viaduct
    Where people jump when they're out of luck,
    Raining down on the cars and trucks below.

    They've put a net there to catch their fall.
    Like it'll stop anyone at all;
    What they don't know is when nature calls, you go.

    Although I’ve often wondered if the Niven/Pournelle solution proposed in Oath of Fealty: Put an unscalable wall along the bridge everywhere but one point, where there’s an unprotected diving board. The theory being when you get there, it’s just too obvious to bring yourself to jump.

    Reply
  4. LawnBoy

    There was a very good article about suicide in the NY Times Magazine in July. It talked about how a lot of the suicides at places like the Golden Gate Bridge are suicides of opportunity, that simply making suicides a bit more difficult can significantly reduce them.

    Reply
  5. peter

    for those of us in seattle, they are considering something similar for the Aurora bridge between Queen Anne and Fremont. I’m in favor of the net or fences, because one of the things that people jumping don’t think about is what happens to the people who come across their bodies afterwards. My office is right next that bridge, which is known as *the* place to commit suicide in Seattle. on average there is about one a month. last february was pretty grim. the Security guards have a subscription deal for therapy sessions, and a couple of years ago a woman went out to her car in the parking lot, only to discover someone had landed on the roof of it.

    I suppose I’m a bit callous about this, and I really am sympathetic towards people who feel suicidal, but my sympathy tends to evaporate when their act has that kind of effect on other unrelated people.

    another major difference between the Aurora and the GG bridges is the extent to which they are over water. currently the GG has a fence that prevents jumping over land. the Aurora doesn’t. the chances of survival when you land on concrete (or a car) are essentially nil. the chances of some jogger or security guard coming across the bloody pancake that used to be you, almost certain.

    Reply
  6. Michael Paul Goldenberg

    Of course, there’s another major bridge in the area. Not sure why that one isn’t so popular for jumpers (or maybe gets less coverage?) as I’m not from SF and have spent little time there.

    Meanwhile, I don’t doubt that a lot of people who attempt suicide regret the attempt sooner or later if they survive. It’s one of the reasons I am very opposed to the notion of physician-assisted suicide (though my opposition is based on much more than that): the notion that we should empower the state or the medical profession to give people an easy out when the motivation for taking it may be transitory (as in the surviving bridge jumper you mention) or problems that society should be addressing in other ways (poverty, fear of being a financial or other sort of burden to family, pressure from family to drink the Kool Aid, relief from chronic pain that COULD be addressed medically if we weren’t such a hypocritical society when it comes to which drugs we sanction (alcohol – good; medical marijuana, etc., bad!), and so on. I heard a doctor say on NPR years ago that assisted suicide is a lousy substitute for adequate health care and pain management.

    So is there any point in putting up a net on the GGB? It seems that there is. If it saves some people, it’s worth it. Of course, it’s not THE answer to needless suicide, but it’s something. If the “romance” of jumping from a famous bridge is denied some people who will have to go to greater lengths to figure out how to off themselves, and if that effort gives them any pause and leads to some of them changing their minds, then yes, it is indeed worth it.

    Reply
  7. Chris H.

    @The Chemist, I’ve responded in the body of the post, above.

    @Michael Paul Goldenberg–the other big bridge, the Bay Bridge, does not have pedestrian access at all. I think they are making it bike accessible, however.

    In any case, there is something about the GGB that makes it a compelling place for suicide. It might be the feeling that (while not always successful, as Peter points out above) your body just goes into the ocean, and so you just disappear. Many bodies are never recovered… Much more considerate than shooting yourself in your rental.

    Reply
  8. goaheadandjump

    This is a ridiculous waste of money and is degrading to citizens. The government should NEVER EVER presume to “protect” people from THEMSELVES. That is completely inappropriate. We do NOT need Big Brother to be our daddy.

    The stupidest things the government has ever done has been in the name of protecting incompetent people from themselves, at the expense of those who are competent. No more. This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and an attack on personal sovereignty.

    Reply
  9. Nancy

    Ow yes there it is another punch in the gut. Ever since a beloved co-worker and friend committed suicide from the GGB I can’t even look at a picture of this icon without feeling ill. In the almost 4 years since this event I’ve made several treks to the bridge with a handful of stamped, cheap touristy picture postcards to hand out to strangers scrawled with the messages, “Tell your friends you love them” on the back and “DEMAND a suicide barrier!” across the front. To this day I remain heartbroken and though yes, I believe we all have a right to off ourselves the bridge is just too convenient. The rail at four and a half feet way too low and the romantic pull is far too strong. There, but for the grace of god, go you and I. At worst I’d say that the Golden Gate Bridge as a place for suicide is just much too tempting — an impulse buy.

    Demand a suicide barrier.

    Reply
  10. Beth

    This may be a silly question, but none of the articles I’ve seen address it:

    Couldn’t people just jump off the safety net?

    That is, they’d jump, land safely on the stainless steel mesh, and then pick themselves up and jump again? Or, if the net is too difficult to stand on, couldn’t they at least roll themselves to the side of the net and drop?

    Even if studies show that some people regret their decision after they’ve past the point of no return, wouldn’t this just postpone the “point of no return” for like 30 seconds?

    Reply
  11. peter

    re:Michael Paul Goldenberg; I suspect the reason is probably that the GGB is a pedestrian bridge, (as is the Aurora in Seattle.) the Bay bridge does not have a pedestrian walkway.

    re:Beth; the article pointed to in the original post seemed to indicate that the net would be designed to collapse around the jumper, and I suppose trap them till someone else arrived. though I have to wonder if the survival in a net would have the same impact if you knew the net was there to begin with. so I tend to agree with your last point.

    Reply
  12. daedalus2u

    If the nanny state can bail out Wall Street for making crappy investment decisions, the nanny state can bail out people for being depressed and suicidal.

    Prevention is always better than cure, how about making mental health benefits more available? Depression is highly treatable. The main difficulty is the misconceptions that people have about what antidepressents do, and the disinformation being put out by Scientologists.

    Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death. If the nanny state can spend billions trying to prevent non-existant terrorists from attacking, it can spend multiple times that to try and prevent many more thousands of deaths.

    Reply
  13. Scrabcake

    We as a society are very callous towards suicides. I used to ride the train to work in the bay area, and every once in a while someone would jump in front of one of the trains either intentionally or not. Without fail there would be some jerk on the train who would complain loudly about being late to work, and “why couldn’t this person just go shoot themselves instead of inconveniencing all of us”.
    That is a tragic epitaph.
    However, the Californian culture also has a tendency to try to protect people from themselves. I tend to agree with the people who think this is going to be a bit of a waste of resources…if a person wants to kill themselves, a net is not going to stop them. There are many other places for a person to jump from and regret it later and we cannot possibly protect all of them, nor should we.
    Putting a net under the bridge is like putting a bandaid on a bubo and trying to forget you have the plague.
    What we can do is work to remove the stigma from depression in our society and the perception that it is a disease of selfish people feeling sorry for themselves.
    We should put our efforts into enticing employers to provide mental health benefits so that going to see a therapist is not out of the financial range of most people.
    That’s going to go a lot further than a net in preventing suicides…
    But perhaps that’s not the point. Perhaps they just want to ensure that people in SF are on time for work in the mornings.

    Reply
  14. The Chemist

    Frequently people who are suicidal are looking for a way out, they’re looking for help. This is not as simple as someone wanting to die and being stymied by the state as we see with terminally ill patients.

    Without throwing an overly general blanket on it, many of these people really don’t want to die, they just want the pain to stop. I remember reading the story of one suicide survivor, who flipped a coin five or six times vowing he wouldn’t kill himself if it came up a certain way (I can’t remember if it was head or tails) and when it came up the wrong way five times, it was then he felt truly powerless about his life and attempted suicide.

    Reply
  15. Brian X

    The Sagamore and Bourne bridges over the Cape Cod Canal actually have rather high fences surrounding the roadway. I don’t know if they were part of the original design from the 1930s or if they were added later, but both bridges are quite high (the terrain, especially on the east end of the canal, is quite hilly, and the canal is also an active shipping channel), so suicide fences are obvious choices.

    Reply
  16. CW

    The government should NEVER EVER presume to “protect” people from THEMSELVES.

    Depression is an illness, not a weakness. Sure, in the Lib’tarian vision everyone is always the brave captain of his own fate but the reality is not nearly as simple as your cartoon.

    Reply
  17. Anonymous

    I would like to be able to get treatment for my depression without having to worry that this will keep me from getting health insurance.

    Reply
  18. JC

    Depression is an illness, not a weakness.

    I fail to see how this is relevant. Just because someone attempts suicide it does not mean they are suffering from depression. A minority of suicides are by people with no mental illness.

    Ultimately the question is whether you should prevent someone carrying out an act because they might later regret it (or regret it if they had the opportunity). You could apply the same logic to ban people from getting tattooed.

    Reply
  19. susan

    I am a native of the Bay Area and I am opposed to the suicide barrier, even though I lost a good friend to suicide several years ago. He jumped out the window of a hotel. Should I blame the hotel? Someone here posted that she feels “ill” whenever she sees the Golden Gate Bridge, and a barrier activist on the news the other night said he feels “angry” whenever he sees people on the Bridge smiling and having a good time. Although I deeply sympathize with grief-stricken friends and family members, I also have to ask, what gives them the right to say that the rest of us cannot enjoy the Bridge, which is a thing of amazing beauty, and truly one of the architectural wonders of the world? From what I have read and heard from some barrier activists, I think they really do want to destroy the Bridge. Because of their grief, they WANT to make the Bridge ugly so that they won’t feel mocked by its beauty. They say it is about “saving lives” but I think, at some level, they can’t accept the reasons that their friend/relative may have had for committing suicide, and so they are transferring their anger to the Bridge. Many articles I’ve read talk about the Bridge as though it were a conscious entity, intentionally luring people to jump. Which, of course, is ridiculous. Activists claim that the debate should have nothing to do with aesthetics — but actually it is the beauty of the Bridge that the activists can’t stand. I think that’s why the barrier is causing so much controversy in the Bay Area, which seems mystifying to those on the outside.

    Reply
  20. CW

    I fail to see how this is relevant. Just because someone attempts suicide it does not mean they are suffering from depression. A minority of suicides are by people with no mental illness.

    You explicitly note that the majority of suicides are suffering from mental illness but you don’t see how that’s relevant? Is this some new definition of the word “relevant” that the rest of us are not familiar with?

    Well here’s a thought: this minority that you are so determined to defend, these people who are exercising their personal sovereignty by committing suicide for quite rational and laudable reasons will just have to do it using some other method than jumping off that one single specific bridge into San Francisco Bay.

    Ultimately the question is whether you should prevent someone carrying out an act because they might later regret it (or regret it if they had the opportunity). You could apply the same logic to ban people from getting tattooed.

    Yes you could apply the same logic, if people were getting tattooed to death. Ply me not with your slippery slope nonsense. Comparing suicide to having ink done is ridiculous.

    Reply
  21. Dave Ruddell

    There something similar not far from my house:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_Veil

    Reply
  22. Brian X

    susan:

    “actually it is the beauty of the Bridge that the activists can’t stand.”

    Do you really expect anyone to believe you mean that? That is easily one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.

    Reply
  23. Susan

    Brian X: my statement is not ridiculous, it is based on statements from barrier advocates about the bridge being so beautiful that it allegedly “lures” people to their deaths. Statements about how seeing people enjoying the bridge makes them angry. Statements about how the ugliness of a barrier shouldn’t matter. The SF Chronicle ran a series on the bridge called “Lethal Beauty.” Etc.

    Reply
  24. Suricou Raven

    I have but one thought on suicide prevention: Keep them off the trains. Suicide-induced delays are very disruptive.

    If people want to die in a way that doesn’t inconvenience others, I have no objection. My main concern with suicide by bridge is the wasted police time to investigate and be sure it’s not a murder, identify the body, and get the paperwork in order.

    Reply
  25. DuWayne

    scrabcakes –

    We as a society are very callous towards suicides. I used to ride the train to work in the bay area, and every once in a while someone would jump in front of one of the trains either intentionally or not. Without fail there would be some jerk on the train who would complain loudly about being late to work, and “why couldn’t this person just go shoot themselves instead of inconveniencing all of us”.

    That’s not callous, that’s reality. Consider this. You’re on your way to work and really can’t afford to be late – penalties will be applied. Some selfish asshole decides to choose your train to jump in front of on the way. You can get off and take a bus, but that will still get you to work pretty damned late.

    Do I have a little sympathy for the asshole who made you late for work? Sure, a bit. But I am also pissed that said asshole chose to use a commuter train as his method, fucking over those on the train who really can’t afford to be late. Not to mention the driver of said commuter train, who in spite of having an absolute inability to have prevented it, will have to deal with that trauma for the rest of their lives.

    I am all about the right to die, even to the point of supporting proactive physician assisted suicide. My body, my fucking choice. I honestly don’t even care if the reason that someone wants to die is depression. I will certainly try my best to work people through it when presented with suicidal people (I have done a fair amount of suicide/depression intervention, mainly stemming from high school). But ultimately, I respect a persons right to die.

    I do not however give people a pass for doing bad things to others, merely because they just offed themselves. Whether we are talking about the guy who got penalized for being late, possibly losing his job – or simply losing some overtime he really needed, or it’s the person driving the train. The suicides actions create real consequences and that is worth disparaging them over. I feel the same way about suicides by cop – actually have a worse attitude about them. Pansy ass can’t even bring themselves to do it themselves – force the police to put themselves and innocent civilians at risk and at least one of them has to deal with the trauma of ending a human life.

    I will do everything I can to convince others that life is still worth living. I will even have sympathy for those who off themselves in a manner that fucks others over. But those who do screw others with their end, deserve and will get a great deal of disparaging from me as well. Being depressed or for whatever reason suicidal is not a license to be a completely selfish prig.

    Reply
  26. harebell

    Suicide is a choice. If somebody wants to end their life then that is their concern. After all the only thing we have control of in life is when we die.
    However if those folk choose to involve others in their decision without first seeking approval then that is selfish. Suicide by cop, suicide by train and suicide by large vehicle is not a victimless act. The cop and the drivers of the conveyances are badly affected by these incidents and involving them is selfish.
    The commuter might be mildly inconvenienced but the train driver will be stunned for the rest of their life.
    Nobody regardless of how deranged they are should make anybody else a victim to their desires.
    If you want to end it, then do so with the minimum of fuss. Diving off a bridge into a vast stretch of water seems ideal to me. Just don’t do it and cause an RTA.

    Reply
  27. Sean

    Ok, looking at the design of the net in the picture it appears as though a would-be jumper would simply… jump twice. First they’d jump into the net (possibly breaking their ankles) and then crawl off the edge of the net.

    Would that be enough to deter someone who was, ehem, Hell-bent on jumping?

    -Sean

    Reply
  28. hallidite

    People who kill themselves aren’t selfish, DuWayne, harebell. They are in intense pain and need to make it stop. It’s not a ‘desire’ so much as a ‘necessity’.
    My sister was in a ward with someone who had a severe eating disorder likely triggered or intensified by a hugely traumatic event – a mentally ill man committing suicide by throwing himself in front of her car. The young woman had watched the man’s head smash apart on the windscreen not a foot in front of her as she was behind the wheel. Her life has been completely ripped apart because of this incident. The man who did this not only took his life, but a large portion of someone else’s.
    However, ‘selfish’? That’s kind of like accusing a schizophrenic of being ‘sketchy’. It makes no sense to think of it like that. If you call it selfishness then you can write off people who do it as selfish individuals without getting into why they might do this in the first place, and why this might be their option, rather than killing themselves more discreetly, or not killing themselves at all. It’s not like suicide is something people do on a whim.

    Reply
  29. Nick

    CALIFORNIA – ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD WHERE YOU CAN TAKE THE LIFE OF AN UNBORN BABY BUT NOT YOUR OWN! What a joke!

    Reply
  30. LanceR, JSG

    Wow. All caps, except the last sentence. A fetish for the fetus, especially in a completely unrelated forum. A complete misunderstanding of California’s (and most US states’) laws.

    Yep. A definite nutter.

    Tip: Most US states consider suicide to be a form of mental illness. Attempted suicide is a quick way to get a “vacation” in a nice padded room.

    Tip: Abortion is legal in *all* 50 states, under certain restrictions.

    You really need to get a grip… and a clue.

    Reply

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