World's Leading Destination for Suicide

Dec. 1, 2003 -- Spanning the turbulent entrance to the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the rare manmade structures that enhances the natural splendor of its surroundings.

Millions visit every year to admire the beauty. But some — and it's more than most people realize — arrive to die. The bridge is said to be the world's leading destination for suicide.

Since it opened on May 28, 1937, more than 1,200 people have jumped from the bridge to their deaths.

The first suicide came when the bridge was just three months old. World War I veteran Harold Wobber turned to his companion, and said 'This is where I get off.' Then he jumped.

Police officially stopped counting the suicides when their number reached 997 in the mid-1990s, fearing there would be a competition to be the 1,000th. Newspapers and television stopped reporting the suicides in an effort to discourage copy cats.

But Richard Seiden, a psychologist and a leading expert on suicide, says the number of suicides did not go down, even though public awareness of the problem did.

Every Two Weeks

Seiden says the bridge makes suicide far too easy.

"It doesn't require any agility at all just to vault over the side. You don't need a gun permit. You don't need a prescription from a doctor. You just need to get here and just walk out on the bridge and do it," he says.

There's a suicide at the bridge every two weeks, on average, says the coroner for Marin County, just across from San Francisco. But it could be more, since many bodies are washed out to sea by the strong tide and never found.

Kary Witt, the bridge manager, says there is an emphasis on patrols to stop suicides. There are bicycles, foot patrols and cameras to try to head off potential suicides. There are also 13 emergency phones installed along the walkway that can be connected directly to a suicide counselor.

"We know that people come to the bridge with the intent of jumping off, and people do," Witt says. "But it isn't a majority of people. It's a tiny, tiny minority of people."

Call for a Safeguard

Renee Milligan, whose teenage daughter Marissa jumped from the bridge two years ago, has established a scholarship in her daughter's name and is now active in suicide prevention.

Learn more about the Marissa Imrie Scholarship.

She is suing the bridge authorities. She says she's not doing it for the money, but to force them to build a suicide barrier.

"I just don't want it to be so easy. I just want to make them think. And have it be difficult and just not an easy thing to be able to know they can, you know, get on a bus, get in a car, go to San Francisco … and jump off the bridge," she told ABCNEWS.

The Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Harbor Bridge all have suicide barriers. But Golden Gate Bridge officials say they face tougher circumstances, among them issues of weight, wind, aesthetics and money.

"Our board has wrestled with the issue of a suicide barrier for years and years," says Witt.

Mistaken Notions

There's one more objection to the barrier: the common assumption that there's no point in trying to stop people from jumping because they'd simply go somewhere else.

But Seiden says that's a misconception. He tracked 500 people who had been prevented from jumping: 94 percent were still alive 25 years after their attempt, or had died of natural causes. "Only 6 percent over 25 years killed themselves," he says.

"The whole linchpin of suicide prevention is that a person's not suicidal their entire life. It's related to crisis. And if we can get them through that crisis, there's a good chance they can have a decent life," says Seiden.

Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines affirm that theory. They are among roughly two dozen people who have jumped from the bridge and survived. They say the split second after they jumped, they wished they hadn't.

"Immediately I felt, I've got to do something about this. I can't, I can't die. I'm 18 years old. I can't die now. I've got my whole life ahead of me," says Hines.

Hines said he turned his body around mid-drop, from head first to feet first, and survived.

Baldwin says he blacked out before he hit the water. But he hit the water at just the right angle and miraculously wound up with only a bruised lung and several broken ribs.

A New Taste for Life

Both men are now grateful that they got a second chance. "I was able to realize how much I would have lost and not lose it. I'm the luckiest guy alive. I really am," says Baldwin.

His daughter, Catherine, was only 3 when her father leapt into the void. He was recently able to hand her her high school diploma. "I wouldn't have been able to do that. Those things give me chills, just thinking about the things I would have lost had I died that day."

Hines now lectures teenagers on suicide prevention — repaying what he says is a cosmic debt.

At one of the speeches, he calls suicide "a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

"If you don't want to live for yourself, live for someone that you know loves you. That's what I did," he says.