(Andrew Gombert/EPA)
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On Sept. 25, 2000, Kevin Hines, then 19, jumped off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Amazingly, he lived, and fully recovered from injuries to his legs and spine. Now Hines, who when he leapt had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, tells his story to at-risk groups around the nation, urging people to get treatment for mental illness and helping them realize that suicide is not the answer. His new memoir, “Cracked, Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt” (Rowman & Littlefield), out July 16, explains the moment he realized he didn’t want to die.
I took the bus to Golden Gate Bridge, following the voices that urged me to take my own life.
The bridge does not have netting or barriers to keep anyone from leaping off. It provides no safety for those suffering from mental afflictions, drug-induced or otherwise. For those who die this way, I wholeheartedly believe they feel they have no other choice, as I did.
I walked toward the traffic railing. As if nothing else mattered, I ran, channeling an Olympic hurdler, striding light, fast and determined.
I used my arms to catapult myself over the rail.
I did not get on the ledge to be talked down. I jumped quickly, without recourse, falling headfirst, fast and hard into the wind and empty space below me.
I reached back for the rail. It wasn’t there.
In the midst of my free fall, I said to myself these words, words I thought no one would ever hear me repeat: “What have I done? I don’t want to die. God, please save me!”
I FELL at a speed of 75 mph.
The end was imminent.
The drop is estimated at 220 feet, or 25 stories. This is two-thirds the height of San Francisco’s world famous Transamerica Pyramid Building. My skin felt as if the rough winds would literally tear through it like needle-sized shards of glass, digging into my hands, my face and neck. Rapidly falling headfirst toward the choppy, green sea, I felt an immense rush, unmatched by any experience I have ever had.
Instinctively, I knew that if I landed as I was — headfirst — I would die. I would be killed outright or break my neck, become paralyzed and drown. My only hope was to land feet first. As I fell, I somehow possessed the mind-set that all I wanted to do was live — by any means necessary.
I threw my head back and uttered one mighty prayer: “God, please, please let me live! Heaven save me!” Perhaps it was the force of my head being thrown back or maybe another powerful gust of wind. Perhaps it was a nudge from my guardian angel, or Jesus Christ Himself who turned my body around, because I hit the water feet first, in a sitting position. I learned later that it is one, if not the only, way to survive such a fall.
The impact was like hitting a brick wall at 75 mph in my dad’s Jaguar.
The impact reverberated through my toes, went up through my legs, and into my torso. My two lower vertebrae, T-12 and L-1, shattered and splintered like glass, piercing my lower organs. By some miracle, the shards missed my heart and lungs.
There are no words for the pain. It was unimaginable.
On the bridge above, horrified people leaned over the rail. They couldn’t have seen the impact my body felt as it slammed to a complete halt. To them, it looked as if I quickly disappeared into the abyss.
Yet, that crashing stop created all the internal damage I sustained. Then, a rippling vacuum pulled me deep under the water.
What happened next? I opened my eyes. I was alive. I was in excruciating pain, but I was still here.
The water was dark green and murky.
I did not know which way was up or down.
My legs were utterly useless, immobile. In a panic, I began swimming using only my arms. The water got darker and colder.
Oh, s–t! I was swimming in the wrong direction, toward the bottom of the bay. My ears rang; my head throbbed. I was running out of air. My eyes felt as though they were bulging out of my head. I felt the extreme cold of the water seep into my body. I writhed, wondering: Could I even make it to the surface?
This was not the plan. I cannot drown. I do not want to drown!
I pulled myself with my arms using all my strength. I began to see the glimmer of the surface. It was so far and I couldn’t seem to swim fast enough.
I had reached complete exhaustion but I kept on going, moving my arms. The glimmer above me began to lighten.
I would not give up. I had to live.
My eyes felt like they were popping out of my head, due to the lack of oxygen. Each stroke took tremendous effort that left a wake of burning in my shoulders and back. I felt that I was going to pass out and drown. No! I told myself.
Just one last stroke, you can do this! No, not this way, God, not like this, I don’t want to drown, please save me. I made a mistake.
I broke the surface.
I attempted to take a giant gasp of that cold air around my face. All I could manage was a silent yelp, like that of an infant. Please let this all be a nightmare or another hallucination!
I was supposed to die on impact. Isn’t that what the Web site promised?
Horrendous pain gripped me as I bobbed up and down on the surface of the water, treading water with my arms. Pain stabbed my back, and my lower abdomen felt as if it had imploded.
I could not draw a deep breath. But the voices now, good or bad, were gone. They were gone! All thoughts of suicide were erased from my mind, gone without a trace. Not today. I can’t die now! I must do everything I can to survive.
Sept. 25, 2000, would not be the day I died by suicide.
This would instead be the day of my awakening.
Something else more profound occurred after I broke the surface. My faith in God returned — with force. After my mental breakdown and up until the moment I jumped, I had questioned the existence of a higher power. Not anymore. I felt God’s presence right beside me. He bobbed in the water with me.
When I could no longer move or fight to live, He guided me. He must have adjusted my position in the air. He must have carried me down into the water and back to the surface.
I TREADED water. Painfully, I turned my wrenched neck to the right. I saw a cement pillar 25 yards away, a ladder attached to it. If I could get to it, I could hold on until someone rescued me. I tried to swim as fast as I could, but I had to pull up my whole body using only my arms. From the moment I hit the water, my legs had stopped moving. I swam, and swam, and swam only to find out I had not altered my position an inch. The pillar at this point seemed unattainable.
Some days, as many as six currents move in different directions simultaneously under that part of the bridge. Between my exhaustion, pain and inability to kick, I was no match for the choppy waters of the San Francisco Bay.
I heard the humming of a boat racing toward me. The Coast Guard arrived right before hypothermia set in, sparing me death, either in the water or soon thereafter in the hospital.
The only reason the Coast Guard reached me as fast as it did was because a woman driving on the bridge saw me jump. She had a car phone, and she called a friend who also happened to be a member of the Coast Guard.
By then I was too exhausted to hold my neck up, so my head fell back in the water. I prayed that the boat’s propeller would not sever a limb, or for that matter, my head.
The boat pulled up right next to me.
“Stay right there. Don’t move!” someone shouted. Two men jumped in the water, gripped me and hoisted me up.
Quickly, they grabbed my forearms in a crisscrossed manner and maneuvered me onto a flat white board. They cut through my soaked sweater to check for any visible damage or internal hemorrhaging. They could not wait for proper techniques and check for injuries. One officer said, “Hey, kid, do you know what you just did?”
“Yes, I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“Why did you do that?”
My pathetic answer was, “I don’t know, I guess I had to die.”
The officer replied, “Do you know how many people we pull out of the water already dead?”
The other officer had a different approach. He put his hand on my hand and said, “You’re a miracle kid.”
My estimation is that more than 2,000 people have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge to their deaths. As of 2012, a former coroner and friend of mine had proven that there were 1,558 confirmed deaths off the bridge. The unaccounted for have been washed away to sea, eaten by fish, or considered “accidental deaths.”
On average, two people leap from the bridge every 10 days. This has been relatively consistent since the bridge’s completion in 1937. Unfortunately, these depressed and troubled men and women quickly die by suicide from the readily accessible railing of the Golden Gate Bridge. I can’t claim to know why they jumped to their deaths, but I would wager a guess that I relate to what drove them there more than most.
In 75 years of the bridge’s existence, only 33 have survived the fall. I was number 26. That’s a survival rate of 2 percent. Only a fraction of these people fully recover from their injuries. Many have already died of natural causes, and only one who survived went back to the bridge and ended his life there.
Of the survivors, 19 of them have come forward and expressed words to this effect: “The second my hands and feet left the rail I realized I had made a mistake, I realized how much I needed to live, or didn’t want to die.”