It's Hard to Enjoy the Bridge Without Thinking About the Suicides

I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area my entire life, but until 1996, when I became executive director of a nationally certified crisis intervention and suicide-prevention center, I didn’t know how many people jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I knew that people jumped occasionally, but I had no idea that there had been so many—well over 1,000 by that time, and double that number now¹—or that the bridge was the top suicide site in the world. Ken Holmes didn’t know that, either.

Holmes was the coroner of Marin County, which is connected to San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. Until 1990, he rarely had a case that involved a jump from the bridge because any bodies that the Coast Guard recovered were delivered to the coroner’s office in San Francisco. In 1990, however, Coast Guard Station Golden Gate moved from San Francisco to Marin County, and the bodies of bridge jumpers were delivered to Holmes’ office. That was when he began to realize the extent of the problem.

In San Francisco, the coroner’s office lumped jumps from office buildings, hotels, freeway overpasses, cliffs, and bridges in a single category, so it was difficult for anyone to access information on Golden Gate Bridge suicides specifically. Holmes was determined to change that. He devoted separate file drawers in his office to hold cases of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers and issued periodic reports that maintained victims’ anonymity but aggregated information by age, gender, occupation, and hometown.

That continued for 20 years, until 2010. Then the Marin County Coroner’s Office was merged with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, Holmes retired, and the files of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers no longer were segmented.

My own moment of epiphany regarding the Golden Gate Bridge occurred during my first week on the job at the crisis center. Members of a local artists guild came into our offices once a month and replaced all of the paintings on the walls with new ones. I thought it was a charming practice until staff went around after guild members left and removed any artwork that included a representation of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Why do you do that?” I asked.

“Because many of the family members in our grief counseling program have lost loved ones to the bridge,” I was told, “and seeing it depicted is painful to them.”

From that moment on, and for years to come, I wasn’t able to look at the Golden Gate Bridge the same way again. It became even more difficult when out-of-town guests visited and said that they wanted to walk on the bridge. I had walked on it before, but now I found myself studying every person I saw, particularly those who were alone, looking for any hint of suicide.

The Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937. The first suicide from the bridge occurred three months later,² and for more than 85 years, suicides from the bridge continued uninterrupted. It has only been in recent months that a marine-grade, stainless-steel net was installed under the bridge to prevent suicides.³ I attended a special ceremony in July to commemorate the completion of the net and sailed under the bridge in a private ferry to gaze at the net from below, but I haven’t walked on the span since then. The next time I do, I hope I’m able to enjoy the view, which is fabulous, rather than think about all of the people who have come to this world-famous landmark for an entirely different reason.

If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, seek help immediately. For help 24/7, dial 988 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.