Several years ago(I am not sure how many) a high school kid jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge. He was the son of a SFFD division cchief. Name was Sherrit or something similar. He was a trained diver and didn't necessarily want to die but figured if he survived his "controlled" jump it would give him new meaning to his life. He survived and swam to shore. Is there anything on the web about this? Where can I find more information?

-- Jody Langford (alpinist@charter.net), January 28, 2005

Answers

They usually keep these things pretty secret but in the mid 80s there was a guy from Marin County who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and swam to shore. He was also on his school's swim team. Later he worked for a Haight Street club called the I-Beam. I had met him once through some acquaintences. And someone else I knew who was there was totally shocked and even somewhat frightened when she saw him because she knew about his jump and thought that he was dangerous and crazy. I didn't think so at all.

There seems to be a margin of survival for a number of people perhaps depending on how they land. There is also the question of how many survive the jump and then just drown from hypothermia or other reasons. If someone could patent a survival jump, they could probably make hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions jumping off the bridge in the Evil Kaneval fashion referring to that stunt man of the 70s who would do insane life-threatening motorcycle jumps in which he received millions for the media broadcast rights. And a good Bridge Jump would always make a good eye-raising stunt for the "FEAR FACTOR" TV show.

-- Harry Murphy (Harrymurphy*@bigmailbox.net), January 28, 2005.

The New Yorker magazine ran an incredible article about two years ago on jumpers off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Two memorable bits: "I instantly realized that everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable - except for having just jumped."

"Every two weeks, on average, someone jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. It is the world's leading suicide location."

Find it at: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031013fa_fact

-- Brian Kelly (bkelly515@yahoo.ca), February 10, 2005.