Yes, people can - and do - commit it anywhere. Yes, it is a huge problem in our community. It's just that SF has a unique problem in being a mecca, the number one destination for it, a bridge with its own fatal grandeur, a monument, complete with its own documentary (The Bridge) - and its own long running public/political debate. The debate being, do we do extensive, expensive ($15 to 20 million), and no matter how you cut it, some pretty ugly modifications on something that is considered world-wide to be monument (and a symbol of our place) in order to stop it? And, as noted, it even has its own bus stop on the 28 (and the 29 too, the 76 on weekends, and every GGT bus).
The numbers are pretty shocking. So far - since 1937, over 1,200 have jumped, including Roy Raymond, the founder of Victoria's Secret, in 1993. 26 have survived - including one who came back and did it again. People jump and kill themselves there, on the average of 19 a year since its opened. In the peak year, 1977, there were 40 suicides, with current rates being a jumper every two weeks or so. That is of the ones we know about. So the people of the area are one of the few groups I know of that talks of suicide as a matter of public policy, and political debate because we are very aware that The Golden Gate Bridge is the world's No. 1 suicide magnet, in part because it makes suicide so easy.
I'm with Susan, and more than once I've been out there (as it is one of my favorite places, to walk, to ride my bike, take pictures, to stand and think) and picked up the call box and phoned the control booth or whatever it is and said "I think this person is in trouble." (And everyone who knows me is aware I'm not a real 'call the police' type.) Others I've asked, to make sure they are just contemplating their navel and not the end of days. On two occasions I've had the Highway Patrol come up to me and ask if I was OK - something about standing there and scribbling in a note book, or they don't see the camera and misunderstand that I'm waiting for the light to be just so - must have got some other good Samaritan to call me in or they were watching me on the cameras. I've been on it when people have gone. I have friends who've been driving across it when a car pulls over in front of them, someone gets out and then they're gone.
But the debate is interesting. Do we change it for everyone because a few use it in that way?
Support is not suicide counseling. It falls way short of that. Support is often more akin to cheerleading, "Go, Rah, Team!" and like cheerleading almost anyone can do it. But also like cheerleading, its not the game and it rarely effects the outcome. Suicide counseling is the real deal, and on that level takes some pretty serious training (with very serious people, with a high burnout rate), and I don't think its a bad thing to note, or to point people in that direction. It also tends to be one on one, and private, not a public posting. When the people trained for it are out on the the bridge, we all don't join in with our own versions of "life is worth living." We let the person who knows what they are doing, do it. If only because the "life is worth living" speech is one that often does more harm than good - because you are giving them reason for yourself, not them as a rule.
