Pretty much everyone is aware that people have ended themselves by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. What you may not have known is how frequent it is, with >20 people from around the world doing it every year.
Inspired by this 2003 article in the New Yorker, filmmaker Eric Steel decided to make a movie under the pretense of capturing "the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge," Mr. Steel set up cameras in 2004 and filmed 23 people jumping to their deaths (and one surprise!). The film uses a perspective of interviewing family members and close friends of the deceased before showing the viewer the actual footage. Called The Bridge, the movie is thought-provoking, unsettling, and really reaffirms the idea (at least for me) that suicide is a fundamentally impulsive act done by very troubled people at a crisis point in their lives. While premeditated, I think that most of these people's deaths could have been prevented if there were a suicide barrier on the bridge. But I guess California has other things to spend its money on right now.
A former client told me once that there are phones at the ends of the bridges that are supposed to connect people to a crisis/suicide prevention line. Somehow the cops took over and now when a troubled person picks up the crisis line phone it goes to the police instead. That's one deterrent gone wrong.
ReplyDelete