The moment Ken Baldwin jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge one August morning in 1985, he was consumed with regret. “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable — except for having just jumped,” he later told the New Yorker.
Miraculously, Baldwin survived; the vast majority of those who jump — some 1,500 since the bridge opened in 1937 — do not. It takes four seconds to reach the surface of the Golden Gate strait below, by which time, a person is falling at 75 miles per hour. Hitting the water’s surface is like hitting concrete. Those who don’t die on impact find themselves unable to stay afloat or eventually perish from hypothermia.
California Highway Patrol officer Kevin Briggs knows all too well the kind of damage the jump can inflict on the human body. He’s also familiar with the darkness that can lead someone to take the fatal plunge. The Army infantry veteran and former San Quentin prison guard has himself sought treatment for severe depression.
Perhaps this is what’s given him the necessary perspective to help people like Kevin Berthia. In 2005, the then 22-year-old found himself hugging the bridge’s railing, inches away from certain death. That’s when he heard Briggs’ voice.
He didn’t try to argue Berthia out of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead, he simply let him talk. “Somehow, the compassion in your voice is what allowed me to kinda let my guard down enough for us to have a conversation,” Berthia later told Briggs. After 90 minutes, Berthia came down off the railing.
In his 23-year career (he retired in 2013 and now works in suicide prevention), Briggs kept more than 200 people from jumping to their deaths.
His typical opening was to ask, “What’s your plan for tomorrow?” If they didn’t have one, he would respond, “Well, let’s make one. If it doesn’t work out, you can always come back here later.” That so many took his advice is a testament both to Briggs’ skill and to the power of offering someone our full, focused attention.