All the kids do it

[Long Run]

And then there was a tsunami

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) — An eleventh-grade honors student from Windsor High School survived a plunge off San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Bridge on Thursday, authorities and onlookers told CBS 5.

The 17-year-old was participating in a humanities class field trip and crossing the bridge when he jumped off between the South Tower and Fort Point into San Francisco Bay, said Windsor Unified School District Superintendent Bill McDermott.

Witnesses to the incident, which occured shortly after 11 a.m., used the word “traumatizing” to describe what they had seen.

Miraculously, the boy survived the fall of about 220-feet and was rescued by a nearby surfer who paddled over to him, authorities said.

The surfer, Frederic Lecouturier of San Rafael, said the student’s classmates were “cheering and yelling as he was dropping to what I thought would be a certain death.”

Lecouterier said the boy, who was being evaluated at San Francisco General Hospital for injuries which reportedly included a broken tailbone and torn lung, told him he had jumped for “kicks.”

McDermott said he didn’t think the boy was trying to committ suicide; nonetheless, California Highway Patrol investigators said they were treating the incident as a case of attempted suicide.

But CHP Officer Chris Rardin acknowleged that “statements were made to others (not the CHP) that indicate it might have been a stunt.”

The Marin County Coroner’s Office and the Golden Gate Bridge District indicated that up to 1,500 people have died jumping off the bridge since it opened in 1937. Last year, 32 people were killed in bridge jumps. Prior to Thursday’s event, seven people so far this year had jumped to their deaths.

Authorities estimated someone jumps off the Golden Gate on average of once every two weeks; 99.9% of those plunges end up being fatal and most of those deaths are ruled suicides.

A recent study by the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California found more students hurl themselves off the bridge than any other demographic group.

Mary Currie, a spokeswoman for the bridge district, said if it turned out that Thursday’s bridge jump was done in fun, she worried that the teen’s survival would send the wrong message.

McDermott indicated this was the first time an incident of this type had ever occured on a school field trip in the Windsor district.

The student who jumped was in the company of about 45 students and two teachers on the field trip, the superintendent said.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/0 ... te-bridge/

[@meric@nwom@n]

Damn, still in the gene pool.

[rubato]

Interesting.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Honors student, eh?

[Lord Jim]

There's an unspoken rule of journalistic ethics here in the Bay Area...

That when somebody jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, they don't get publicity....

It happens 3 or 4 times a year, but it doesn't get publicized...

I think that's a good rule; it reduces the drama factor and discourages forlorn copycats...

But I guess if you do it and survive, that's news....

[BoSoxGal]

The article says an average of one jumper every two weeks, LJ - so that would be 26 jumpers every year. I guess your local press IS very good about keeping the stories out of the papers/off the news.

[BoSoxGal]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge

Suicides

The Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular place to commit suicide in the entire world.[45] The deck is approximately 245 feet (75 m) above the water.[46] After a fall of approximately four seconds, jumpers hit the water at some 76 miles per hour (122 km/h). At such a speed water has been determined to take on properties similar to concrete.[citation needed] Because of this, most jumpers die on their immediate contact with the water. The few who survive the initial impact generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water.

An official suicide count was kept, sorted according to which of the bridge's 128 lamp posts the jumper was nearest when he or she jumped. By 2005, this count exceeded 1,200 and new suicides were averaging one every two weeks.[47] For comparison, the reported second-most-popular place to commit suicide in the world, Aokigahara Forest in Japan, has a record of 78 bodies, found within the forest in 2002, with an average of 30 a year.[48] There were 34 bridge-jump suicides in 2006 whose bodies were recovered, in addition to four jumps that were witnessed but whose bodies were never recovered, and several bodies recovered suspected to be from bridge jumps. The California Highway Patrol removed 70 apparently suicidal people from the bridge that year.[49]

There is no accurate figure on the number of suicides or successful jumps since 1937, because many were not witnessed. People have been known to travel to San Francisco specifically to jump off the bridge, and may take a bus or cab to the site; police sometimes find abandoned rental cars in the parking lot. Currents beneath the bridge are very strong, and some jumpers have undoubtedly been washed out to sea without ever being seen. The water may be as cold as 47 °F (8 °C).

The fatality rate of jumping is roughly 98%. As of 2006, only 26 people are known to have survived the jump.[47] Those who do survive strike the water feet-first and at a slight angle, although individuals may still sustain broken bones or internal injuries. One young woman, Sara Birnbaum, survived, but returned to jump again and died the second time.[citation needed] One young man survived a jump in 1979, swam to shore, and drove himself to a hospital. The impact cracked several of his vertebrae.[50] On March 10, 2011, 17 year-old Luhe “Otter” Vilagomez from Windsor High School in Windsor, California survived a jump from the bridge, breaking his tailbone and puncturing one lung. [51]

Engineering professor Natalie Jeremijenko, as part of her Bureau of Inverse Technology art collective, created a "Despondency Index" by correlating the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the number of jumpers detected by "Suicide Boxes" containing motion-detecting cameras, which she claimed to have set up under the bridge.[52] The boxes purportedly recorded 17 jumps in three months, far greater than the official count. The Whitney Museum, although questioning whether Jeremijenko's suicide-detection technology actually existed, nevertheless included her project in its prestigious Whitney Biennial.[53]

Various methods have been proposed and implemented to reduce the number of suicides. The bridge is fitted with suicide hotline telephones, and staff patrol the bridge in carts, looking for people who appear to be planning to jump. Iron workers on the bridge also volunteer their time to prevent suicides by talking or wrestling down suicidal people.[54] The bridge is now closed to pedestrians at night. Cyclists are still permitted across at night, but must be buzzed in and out through the remotely controlled security gates.[55] Attempts to introduce a suicide barrier had been thwarted by engineering difficulties, high costs, and public opposition.[56] One recurring proposal had been to build a barrier to replace or augment the low railing, a component of the bridge's original architectural design. New barriers have eliminated suicides at other landmarks around the world, but were opposed for the Golden Gate Bridge for reasons of cost, aesthetics, and safety (the load from a poorly designed barrier could significantly affect the bridge's structural integrity during a strong windstorm).

Strong appeals for a suicide barrier, fence, or other preventive measures were raised once again by a well-organized vocal minority of psychiatry professionals, suicide barrier consultants, and families of jumpers after the release of the controversial 2006 documentary film The Bridge, in which filmmaker Eric Steel and his production crew spent one year (2004) filming the bridge from several vantage points, in order to film actual suicide jumps. The film caught 23 jumps, most notably that of Gene Sprague as well as a handful of thwarted attempts. The film also contained interviews with surviving family members of those who jumped; interviews with witnesses; and, in one segment, an interview with Kevin Hines who, as a 19-year-old in 2000, survived a suicide plunge from the span and is now a vocal advocate for some type of bridge barrier or net to prevent such incidents from occurring.

On October 10, 2008, the Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors voted 14 to 1 to install a plastic-covered stainless-steel net below the bridge as a suicide deterrent. The net will extend 20 feet (6 m) on either side of the bridge and is expected to cost $40–50 million to complete.[57][58] However, lack of funding could delay the net's construction.[59]

eta: I've seen The Bridge. It's an excellent documentary.

[Lord Jim]

The article says an average of one jumper every two weeks, LJ - so that would be 26 jumpers every year

Well, if we can get the potential swan divers to start reading Steve's posts, we might be able to get that up to one every week....)


(I'm sorry, that was terrible....but I just couldn't resist.. .)

[oldr_n_wsr]

I was on the diving team at my local community pool (Mineola) while in high school. I did a jump then a dive from the 15 meter platform and never tried it again. Even an almost perfect jump and dive hurt like hell. How anyone could think a 200+foot jump was just a stunt is beyond my comprehension. Drunk or high at the time is the only logical conclusion.

[Andrew D]

On October 10, 2008, the Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors voted 14 to 1 to install a plastic-covered stainless-steel net below the bridge as a suicide deterrent. The net will extend 20 feet (6 m) on either side of the bridge and is expected to cost $40–50 million to complete.[57][58] However, lack of funding could delay the net's construction.[59]

Let's hope that its construction gets delayed forever.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Let's hope that its construction gets delayed forever.

If determined, a suicide jumper will just jump out of net to complete the mission.

[Gob]

Or go somewhere else to jump, there's no shortage of sites.