The Final Leap (11 page)

The same can't be said about the Golden Gate Bridge, at least not yet. Each month produces more jumps, more witnesses to jumps, and more loved ones who are left to mourn. Each month also produces more attempted jumps, more police interventions, and more people who are escorted off the bridge for their personal safety. Simultaneously, there are many reasons why someone who's suicidal chooses to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. There's the allure of the bridge, the mystique, and the romanticism. There's the belief that death will be quick and painless. And there's the easy access.

Several years ago, Patricia Dunn was interviewed on TV's
60 Minutes
about her controversial ouster as president of the board of computer giant Hewitt-Packard. Dunn's professional life was in shambles, her integrity was attacked, her health was declining, and she was reeling emotionally. Leslie Stahl, the
60 Minutes
reporter, asked Dunn how she was dealing with everything when the story was so public and she was receiving so little support from former colleagues. Dunn paused, started to answer, couldn't find the words, then said softly, “Well, there's always the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Dunn wasn't at a point where she was seriously contemplating suicide. Still, she was voicing the thought that many local people have if things get really bad: with the bridge so close and omnipresent, it's always an option. Moreover, loved ones are spared the physical shock of a person's death—there's no horrifying sight to discover, no room that's forever associated with a tragic act, no gruesome cleanup. Once you're over the side, it's the problem of trained professionals—Coast Guard crew members and coroner's investigators. That is, if your body is found. If it's not found, so much the better; you just disappear.

The only thing that's left is a ripple—a ripple that may be felt for generations.

Early on, I was indifferent to suicides from the bridge. After being here, though, and talking with families of the victims, it swung me completely over to the other side.

—Ken Holmes, coroner of Marin County

With Golden Gate Bridge suicides, it's often the coroner who uncovers the complexity and pain inherent in the act of jumping. The stories conveyed by this public servant illuminate a mesh of psychological and physical suffering.

Most suicides are planned. When Diane Hansen, thirty, of Sausalito jumped from the bridge, it was two weeks after her mother died and was cremated. As Hansen fell, narrowly missing a Harbor Queen cruise ship filled with tourists, she held onto a 10-by-10-inch white box that contained her mother's ashes. Stephen Hoag, twenty-six, of San Francisco, left a suicide note that said, “Do not notify my mother. She has a heart condition.” There was no need to notify his mother, however—she saw it on the evening news. Hoag was the five hundredth official suicide from the bridge.

Even when the act is planned, however, the moment of action may remain in doubt. On April 24, 1998, for example, two women ages twenty-two and fifty-one who did not know each other ended up at the same spot on the bridge at the same time with the same intention of killing themselves. They sat on the chord, on the other side of the railing, talking to each other. A Bridge Patrol officer noticed them and tried to talk them back to safety; instead, one woman stood up and stepped backward off the bridge. The other woman then followed her.

A few suicides appear almost fanciful. John Thomas Doyle, forty-nine, of San Francisco died leaving a suicide note that read, “Absolutely no reason except I have a toothache.” Eilert Johnson, seventy, of Oakland held a hat on his head with both hands the whole way down as if he was afraid it would blow away.

The majority of deaths resulting from Golden Gate Bridge jumps are investigated by the Marin County coroner's office. Prior to 1991, the bodies of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers were delivered to Letterman Hospital, an Army hospital in the Presidio at San Francisco. When the Coast Guard station in San Francisco was relocated to Marin County in 1991, however, the coroner's office in Marin began receiving the corpses.

Ken Holmes worked in the Marin County coroner's office for thirty-five years, starting as an investigator in 1975. In 1998 he was elected coroner, and he held that position until December 31, 2010, when the office was merged with the sheriff's department and Holmes retired. In 2005 he was asked by a reporter about the physical impact on a body from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. “Some people seem to think that jumping off the bridge is a light, airy way to end your life,” Holmes said, “like going to join the angels. I'd like to dispel that myth. When you jump off the bridge, you hit the water hard. It's not a pretty death.”

A jumper's body travels at a speed of seventy-five miles per hour. Upon impact the outer body stops but the internal organs keep going, tearing loose from their connections. Sternums, clavicles, and pelvises shatter. Aortas, livers, and spleens are lacerated. Skulls, ribs, and vertebra are fractured. The result is similar to that of a pedestrian who's struck by a car going seventy-five miles per hour. In many cases, jagged rib bones puncture the heart, lungs, or major arteries, causing the brain to shut down immediately for lack of oxygen-bearing blood.

If a person does not die right away, he or she dies by drowning. Bodies plunge deep into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay and breathe it in. In rare cases, jumpers not only survive the fall but are able to swim to the surface despite suffering massive internal injuries. They flail away in the water hoping to be rescued, their bodies broken, every breath painful. Overall, about 5 percent of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers drown according to a report in the
Western Journal of Medicine
, based on a study of 169 Golden Gate Bridge jumpers. The 2 percent who survive the fall hit the water feet first and at a slight angle so that their body arcs back to the surface. Those who land perfectly straight end up diving too deep and drown, while those who land any other way tend to die on impact, with deep bruises on their torso, back, buttocks, and the underside of their arms.

One woman was so intent on killing herself, and so worried about the pain if she survived the fall, that she carried a gun with her to the bridge and shot herself in the head on the way down. She left a note for her roommate saying that she didn't want to feel the impact of hitting the water or take a chance that she might live.

One Coast Guard officer described the effect of a bridge jump this way: “It's as if someone took an eggbeater to the organs of the body and ground everything up.”

Over the years, Holmes and his staff have witnessed many gruesome sights. They are largely inured to it; after all, if you do autopsies you'd better be comfortable around mutilated bodies. Still, when people hit the water face first, it obliterates features and opens up gaping holes. Other jumpers land on rocks, usually on the north end of the bridge, and their body just comes apart. In some instances only partial remains are found after a body has been in the water for days or even weeks. Nothing is as bad, though, as receiving the body of a child.

In January 1993, a thirty-two-year-old man drove his three-year-old daughter to the bridge, threw her over the side, and followed her. Pam Carter is a senior coroner's investigator in Marin County. At the time, she was working as a nurse at Marin General Hospital. The daughter, named Kellie, was brought into the hospital's emergency room, still alive. Doctors worked frantically for ninety minutes trying to save her, but there was nothing they could do. Afterward, Carter was told to take Kellie's body to the hospital morgue. The thought of leaving the child on a cold slab was abhorrent to her so she borrowed a crib, took it to the morgue, and laid the girl inside. “That had to be the worst,” Carter told a
San Francisco Chronicle
reporter. “This little thing, taken like that by her father, the person she loved and looked up to. It was awful.” Even after that incident, which was well publicized, many people opposed a suicide barrier. The
San Francisco Examiner
conducted a poll and 54 percent of respondents said they were against it.

There have been at least two other instances where a parent has thrown a child over the railing, then followed them to their deaths. In 1964, a forty-five-year-old airplane mechanic jumped with his four-year-old son. In November 1993—the same year that little Kellie was hurled over the side—a thirty-seven-year-old man jumped with his two-year-old son.

One of the arguments against a suicide barrier is that people who choose to kill themselves don't deserve society's protection. Yet these three children didn't have a choice, and they did deserve protection.

Marilyn DeMont wasn't officially murdered, but she might as well have been. She's considered the bridge's youngest suicide. In 1945, five-year-old Marilyn was on the bridge with her father. He told her to climb over the railing and stand on the girder on the other side. As Allen Brown describes it in his book
Golden Gate
, “The wind blew through her blond hair as she silently looked back at her father for instructions. He commanded her to jump. Then August DeMont, a thirty-seven-year-old elevator installation foreman from San Francisco, gracefully dived after his daughter.” A note found later in August DeMont's car didn't explain the two deaths, it merely said, “I and my daughter have committed suicide.”
¹

When the Bridge Patrol or California Highway Patrol receive a call that a person has jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, an officer is sent to the location of the jump as determined by the light pole number. There, the officer drops a nineteen-inch-long marine location marker, also known as a Mark-25 or “smoke float,” into the water. The marker emits both smoke and a flare for up to thirty minutes. Supplied by the Coast Guard and stored on the bridge for easy access (they're not reusable), the marker is weighted and indicates which way the tide is moving, enabling the Coast Guard to develop search patterns. On the bridge, officers follow the marker with binoculars and maintain radio communication with the Coast Guard. The current is so strong and variable in the straits that the bodies of bridge jumpers have washed out to the Farallon Islands, nearly thirty miles away, then washed back in under the bridge.

When the Coast Guard lifeboat arrives and the jumper is located, two members of the four-person crew, wearing protective body suits, retrieve the jumper and perform CPR. If the person is alive, he or she is taken to shore in San Francisco or Marin County (whichever side is closest), loaded onto a waiting ambulance, and transported to San Francisco General or Marin General hospital. If the person is dead, the body is delivered to the Marin County coroner. If a body isn't recovered by the Coast Guard, which spends two to three hours searching, and subsequently washes up further down the coast, the coroner in that county performs the autopsy. Whatever happens, when a jump or potential jump from the Golden Gate Bridge is reported, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) handles the investigation. The CHP is responsible for all incidents, accidents, and deaths that occur on California freeways, including highways 1 and 101, which join to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

There's a solemn ritual when the body of a Golden Gate Bridge jumper is delivered to the coroner. Coast Guard crews bring the body to shore at Fort Baker in a long, shallow container that's covered with a tarp. Placed on top of the tarp or alongside it are the person's belongings, if there are any. The container is set on a dock, awaiting the arrival of a coroner's investigator. According to international maritime law, the Coast Guard's jurisdiction ends when a body touches land, although sailors stand guard over it until there's a proper handoff.

When the coroner's investigator arrives, he or she meets first with the CHP officer handling the case. The officer relates any information about the jumper, including whether the jump was witnessed. Then the coroner's investigator goes to work. The coroner's office has four responsibilities: identify the deceased, notify next of kin, conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death, and file a death notice. With the exception of the death notice, which is easily handled once the facts of the case are known, a bridge suicide can be a lot of work, depending on the circumstances.

If a wallet is found on the body, identification is easy to confirm. The investigator checks records with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to determine whether the person owned a car, then goes to the bridge parking lots to see if the car is there. If the deceased's body is found with car keys, the inspector will try them on all matching makes of cars. “It's a lot easier today,” Ken Holmes says, “because most cars come with remotes. You just stand in the parking lot and press the button. If the car is there, the lights will flash.” Sometimes a jumper leaves a suicide note in the car. Other times he or she mails a good-bye letter to people, making sure to time it so that the letter arrives after the person jumps.

If there is no identification, then “a long and expensive process begins,” according to Holmes, to determine who has died, where he or she was living, and next of kin. First, the investigator checks fingerprints of the deceased against California DMV records. If there's no match, the investigator checks against the Federal Bureau of Investigation database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. The investigator also charts the deceased's teeth to match against possible dental records, as well as notes the person's jewelry, piercings, and clothing labels. Eighty percent of the time, Holmes says, the person is identified within one month. The other 20 percent, more legwork is required.

Recently, a person's remains were found high up on a small beach near the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Depending on the tides, the beach is often underwater and not visible. A kayaker went up into the rocks (probably to go to the bathroom, Holmes speculates) and found the skull and upper torso of a male that had been there six or seven years. Scavengers had picked the skull clean, but the torso was still clothed. In addition, there was a Sony Walkman nearby. The coroner's investigator ran a check of the Walkman's batteries and determined that they were made in March 2002. A subsequent check of the jacket the man was wearing revealed that it was first sold in 2004, so that established the earliest he could have died. To date, the coroner's office has put in sixty man-hours on the case, with more to come. The condition of the body indicates a considerable fall, consistent with a jump from the bridge, although the person could have fallen accidentally or been pushed. As a result, the death is unlikely to be recorded as a suicide unless the body is identified and writings are found indicating the person's intent.