The Golden Leap

For a dime and a four-second drop, he attains momentary fame. The coin goes into the pedestrian turnstile on San Francisco's Golden Gate, at 4,200 ft. the second longest single-span suspension bridge in the world.* Since the west side is closed to foot traffic, he walks along the bridge's east flank, ignoring a magnificent view of the city. Having reached the center span, he climbs without hesitation over the waist-high guard rail and--again without hesitation--jumps. Even if he hits feet first after a 250-ft. descent, the impact velocity of about 85 m.p.h. is likely to drive both legs up into his body, shattering his pelvis. Shocked and immobilized, he soon drowns in the numbing waters of the bay.

No. I Site. In the 33 years since the Golden Gate stitched San Francisco to Marin County, 391 people have leaped from it to their deaths. (Five others, all in their resilient youth, survived to tell about it.) The figure does not include another 129 recorded by the California Highway Patrol as "possibles" based on circumstantial evidence --a pile of clothing left by the rail, a farewell message left behind, an abandoned car. But even the official toll, says Dr. Richard H. Seiden, associate professor of behavioral sciences at Berkeley, qualifies the bridge as "the No. 1 location for death by suicide in the entire Western world"--a fitting distinction for San Francisco, whose suicide rate of 38.2 per 100,000 is about twice that of the state of California, and more than three times the national rate. The claim may be accurate, but the Golden Gate is one of the few major U.S. spans that keeps a body count. For unfathomable reasons, New York City does not classify its suicides, and bridge jumpers are listed merely as "accidents."

With help from the California Highway Patrol and bridge authorities, Berkeley's Seiden now knows enough about the Golden Gate jumper to rough in his profile. Typically, he is a man (three out of four jumpers) in his 40s, and a Bay Area resident. Experience has taught observers to rule out the pedestrian who climbs a cable and poises irresolutely before the swan dive. Such behavior usually describes the "pseudo suicide," who does not really mean business; he can be coaxed, if necessary, to climb down.

Making Suicide Easy. But why the Golden Gate Bridge? Because, says Seiden, the jump from that impressive span has considerable publicity value: "The newspapers keep a running box score on the number. It is a very dramatic way to die if a person doesn't want to end up in the classifieds." Adds Dr. Edwin S. Shneidman, former chief of the Center for Studies of Suicide Prevention at the National Institute of Mental Health: "One jumps from a place which has a reputation. It is the thing to do and the place to do it."

Moreover, the bridge authorities make it easy for the jumper. Roving uniformed patrols peel an occasional eye for prospects. But, principally for aesthetic reasons, the kind of barrier that radically reduced leaps from Manhattan's Empire State Building, for instance, has never blighted the beauty of the Golden Gate. This horrifies Shneidman, who has prodded the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District, the agency responsible, to withdraw its invitation to suicide. He rejects the board's argument that if it stops the bridge jumper, he will only go somewhere else to take his life.

"If a person cannot commit suicide when and where he wants in an impulsive moment," says Shneidman, "he might just say the hell with it." At a meeting last week, the board accepted Shneidman's proposal to consider installing a physical barrier against would-be jumpers.

-Longest: the Verrazano Narrows, completed in 1964, which stretches 4,260 ft. from Brooklyn to Staten Island.

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