Friday, April 14, 2017

Why not allow those that want or need to jump, do it? Is it better to have them jump off a building and kill someone else?

Suicide Barriers Going Up At Golden Gate Bridge After Over 1.5K Deaths

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Work officially began Thursday on a net under the Golden Gate Bridge intended to prevent and deter the dozens of suicides that take place at the iconic landmark each year.

More than 1,500 people are thought to have died there over the bridge’s 80-year lifespan.

The stainless steel net, located about 20 feet below the bridge’s sidewalk, will span 1.7 miles of roadway on each side of the bridge and extend 20 feet out over the water.

It will be built over a period of four years, at a cost of just over $200 million drawn from a mix of federal, state and local sources.

At a ceremony today to mark the start of the project, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that during the long process of obtaining the funding for the project, people would ask her, “isn’t that a lot of money for a net?”

“And we would say no, it’s not a lot of money for a life, for all of these lives,” Pelosi said.

“Together we are acting on a deep moral imperative to save lives wherever we can,” Pelosi said.

The scenic bridge has proven to have a deadly allure over the years.
In 2016 alone, 39 people died by suicide there. Bridge patrol officers also conducted 184 successful interventions in 2016 to keep people from harming themselves.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor, shared her own personal experience with a Golden Gate Bridge suicide, when radio talk show host and political activist Duane Garrett, who had worked on her campaigns, took his own life there in 1995.

“For many years, I had to wonder why,” Feinstein said. “And there are many families here today that have had to wonder why.”

Despite the many deaths, the families of suicide victims have had a long, hard battle of many years, first to win support for a suicide barrier of some sort and then to see it funded.

Local officials scrambled to assemble the last piece of funding in December 2016, after bids came in at least $120 million over original estimates.

Kymberlyrenee Gamboa, who lost her 18-year-old son Kyle to suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2013, said Thursday his death had led her and her husband on a journey to determine what could have led to his death and how others like it could be prevented.

“Today marks the beginning of the end of suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge,” Gamboa said. “Soon no family will experience the tragedy of a suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge.”

A Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health review found that, overall, nine out of 10 people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by suicide at a later date.

Similarly, a 1978 study conducted at the Golden Gate Bridge showed that 90 percent of those who were prevented from jumping did not later die by suicide or other violent means.

Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District spokeswoman Priya Clemens said, “The construction starts this year but people won’t see very much right now, what they’re going to see is a little bit of fencing going up that’ll protect the contractors as they’re underneath the bridge taking measurements.”

Clemens said, “The concept behind the suicide deterrent is that the people who come here don’t actually want to hurt themselves, they want to end their lives, and when you see a hard stainless steel platform two stories down that you will hit when you jump off the sidewalk, that’s going to stop you from jumping at all.”
Work crews will begin installing temporary fencing along the bridge approaches and around the tower legs in May, with installation set to follow in mid-2018.

36 comments:

  1. What this country needs is government funded safe suicide jump sites !

    No more dangerous to others jumping off buildings.

    Permanent solutions to temporary problems !

    But seriously I'm all for the net:

    A Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health review found that, overall, nine out of 10 people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by suicide at a later date.

    Similarly, a 1978 study conducted at the Golden Gate Bridge showed that 90 percent of those who were prevented from jumping did not later die by suicide or other violent means.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Some people, being thrill seekers that they are, will probably start jumping now for the fun of it, though.

      This should be met with at least 6 months in jail and a really serious fine.

      Delete
    2. Not a single successful suicide had anything to say about it afterward.

      Delete
  2. Now that is an interesting good Friday post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Need a bridge to jump off of, Ash ?

      If you do I can suggest one, but the time is short.

      :)

      :)

      Have a wonderful Easter, Ash.

      I mean it, too, unbelievably.

      Delete
  3. If you are looking for a reason to jump off a bridge, consider this -

    EDUCATION OVER BERATION !


    Wellesley student editorial: “Hostility may be warranted” towards those who embrace “hate speech” after reeducation
    POSTED AT 2:41 PM ON APRIL 14, 2017 BY ALLAHPUNDIT


    True story: Wellesley used to be a thought of as a good school with bright students.

    In fairness, despite all of the attention being paid online today to this fascist anti-fascist excrescence (the paper’s server is overwhelmed with traffic as I write this), there’s nothing in it that you wouldn’t hear on any other campus or in any other campus’s faculty lounge. It’s distinguished by two things, one being the surprisingly poor quality of the writing. Normally when you’re claiming the intellectual authority to reeducate the unwashed and, if need be, to ostracize the unrepentant among them, you proofread your copy to make sure clanging phrases like “We have all said problematic claims” have been safely excised beforehand.

    The other distinction is that tirades about “hate speech” usually don’t come with overt threats of “hostility” towards the infidels. They should, since that’s how this nonsense plays out in practice, as Charles Murray could tell you. But there’s still enough of a veneer of intellectualism in apologias for this sort of thought-policing that consequences for the nonconformists are usually merely implied, not recommended.

    "Wellesley is certainly not a place for racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech. Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government. The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging…

    We have all said problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society. Luckily, most of us have been taught by our peers and mentors at Wellesley in a productive way. It is vital that we encourage people to correct and learn from their mistakes rather than berate them for a lack of education they could not control. While it is expected that these lessons will be difficult and often personal, holding difficult conversations for the sake of educating is very different from shaming on the basis of ignorance.

    This being said, if people are given the resources to learn and either continue to speak hate speech or refuse to adapt their beliefs, then hostility may be warranted. If people continue to support racist politicians or pay for speakers that prop up speech that will lead to the harm of others, then it is critical to take the appropriate measures to hold them accountable for their actions. It is important to note that our preference for education over beration regards students who may have not been given the chance to learn. Rather, we are not referring to those who have already had the incentive to learn and should have taken the opportunities to do so. Paid professional lecturers and politicians are among those who should know better."


    You would think the Committee of Public Safety would give all citizens an opportunity to recant their thoughtcrimes and accept reeducation before “appropriate measures” are taken. But no, they’re quite explicit that if you’ve resisted previous efforts at deprogramming, “beration” is the only correct course. You can confess moral error or you can be flogged for it. Rarely do these screeds reveal their essence as religious manifestos as clearly as this one does.

    Anyway. Send your kids to school somewhere else. Just don’t expect them to be able to avoid this garbage, wherever they end up.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2017/04/14/wellesley-student-editorial-hostility-may-be-warranted-towards-those-who-embrace-hate-speech-after-reeducation/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Story of one jumper -

    Tragedy, Suicide and New York's "King of the Red Carpet"
    by Chris Gardner April 14, 2017, 6:45am PDT

    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/tragedy-suicide-new-yorks-king-red-carpet-992572

    I'm out until a happier topic comes along.

    Ciao

    ReplyDelete


  5. It's San Francisco ...CALIFORNIIA


    ReplyDelete
  6. Wei Tu Gei

    Signs of the times:

    Deaf people drop hand signals that use slanted eyes to describe the Chinese and a limp wrist for gays

    Today the only acceptable way to sign China is to indicate the shape of a Mao jacket, while the sign for a Jew is to make the shape of a beard

    Rather than flicking a limp wrist, a gay person is signed with an upright thumb on one hand in the palm of the other, wobbling from side to side

    It is no longer acceptable to point to the middle of their foreheads as the sign for India - instead they make the triangular shape of the subcontinent


    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214467/Signs-times-Deaf-people-drop-hand-signals-use-slanted-eyes-Chinese-limp-wrist-gays.html#ixzz4eGBiSn6Z
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. .

      Rather than flicking a limp wrist, a gay person is signed with an upright thumb on one hand in the palm of the other, wobbling from side to side

      That's supposed to be less objectionable?

      :o)

      Lordy.

      .

      Delete
  7. BRITISH NEWS:


    Kathleen Biden sobs in court as she details the collapse of her marriage to Hunter but he's a no-show and stays home with his brother's widow who is now his lover


    In court records obtained by the Dailymail.com, Kathleen accused Hunter of spending ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars of marital funds'
    She claimed he indulged in 'drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women with whom he had sexual relations'
    Hunter, 47, was not in court, and instead hid out with his new lover, who is also his widowed sister-in-law Hallie

    ===


    When news broke of the new couple, Joe and Jill provided a comment stating how happy they were for the couple.
    There was no mention by the Bidens however of Kathleen.


    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4412890/Hunter-Biden-s-wife-sobs-court-judge-grants-divorce.html#ixzz4eGGHv8Q7

    ReplyDelete
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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. I wonder if there would be a virtual news blackout in America if Jared went rogue?

      Delete
  8. Teen busted in McDonald's gang beatdown punished for terrorizing Rikers Island

    One of the most violent inmates on Rikers Island is a teen so dangerous she’s being kept in a special unit and forced to wear mittens.

    Ferguson was charged with leading the March 2015 beatdown of 16-year-old Ariana Taylor in a three-minute attack that was caught on video and shared across the globe.

    Several onlookers snapped photos and took video as Taylor was punched, kicked, pulled and stomped on by Ferguson and a handful of other girls.

    It wasn’t until Taylor was lying limp on the floor, with Ferguson stomping on her head, that two customers stepped in.

    Ferguson’s history of violence includes arrests for stabbing her brother and beating up her grandmother.

    Ferguson, who is the mother of a toddler and an admitted Folk Nation gang member, will return to court later this month for sentencing.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/teen-mcdonald-gang-attack-punished-terrorizing-rikers-article-1.3022777

    Jeeze:
    3 minute video: I wonder about the condition of the beatee's brain now.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Easter Egg Hunt tomorrow at Doggie Day Care !

    Yes, you must be a dog to participate, and no, the treats are not eggs, just look like eggs.

    Raul is going !

    woof woof

    ReplyDelete
  10. China is not accepting North Korean coal, and is not shipping fuel oil to North Korea, according to reports.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. April 14, 2017
      Things getting hairier in North Korea
      By Rick Moran

      There is a possibility that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un may have reached the end of his free ride for developing a nuclear weapon.

      Reports from top Pentagon officials appear to indicate that the U.S. may strike North Korea with conventional weapons if Kim even just tests another nuclear bomb.


      The anniversary of the birth of North Korea's found Kim Il-sung is this weekend – the most important holiday for Kim's regime. The government has hinted at a "big event," which many Western analysts believe could be another test of the North's nuclear weapons program.

      If so, and if the reports out of Washington are true, we may be at war on the Korean peninsula before the weekend is out.

      NBC News:....

      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/things_getting_hairier_in_north_korea.html

      Delete

  11. by Jason Nark, Staff Writer @jasonnark | narkj@phillynews.com

    It takes four seconds to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge to the bay below, and Kevin Hines remembers every one of them.

    On Sept. 25, 2000, Hines, then 19, took a bus to the San Francisco landmark, and gobbled down a last meal of Skittles and Starbursts. He walked around for a while, sobbing and hallucinating, hoping someone would notice and stop him. After a German tourist asked if he would take her picture, Hines hurdled the orange railing and sped toward the water at 75 mph, tears plastered across his face.

    The regret he felt was something more than instant, he said. The urge to live filled up inside him - a few seconds too late, 220 feet above the bay.

    "It was the first millisecond, the first moment of free fall. I knew it was the worst mistake I ever made," Hines, now 34, said recently.

    Hines, found to have bipolar disorder as a teenager, now travels the world urging others to not make that mistake. He has detailed his attempted suicide and recovery in a book, Cracked, Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt, and he will speak Monday night at the University of Pennsylvania.

    "I do believe suicide is preventable," Hines said.

    His appearance follows the 10th suicide of a Penn student in the last three years. On Monday, 21-year-old Ao "Olivia" Kong, a junior at the Wharton School of Business, took her own life.

    The odds were that Hines' jump was the last mistake he would make. The Centre for Suicide Prevention in Calgary, Alberta, says that more than 1,600 people have gone off the Golden Gate Bridge and that Hines is one of only 33 known to have survived. Surviving is akin to living through a head-on collision with a brick wall without a seat belt. Jumpers suffer massive internal injuries and broken bones, and those injuries are always compounded by the chilly, turbulent water of San Francisco Bay. A jumper may live long enough to drown.

    Hines shattered and splintered three vertebrae, and those splinters pierced internal organs. He was able to tread water, and, bizarrely, he also says that a sea lion, a species common in the area, swam around him, helping keep his head above water until rescuers came.

    Surgeons screwed a metal plate into Hines' back, and he spent a month in the hospital. Doctors credited his survival and almost complete physical recovery to his athleticism. He is a former wrestler.
    ...

    Kevin Hines will appear at 7 p.m. Monday at the Jordan Medical Center and Law Auditorium, 3400 Civic Center Blvd., University City. Tickets are $15 ($5 for students) and can be purchased at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kevin-hines-event-tickets-23093899475. For more information about suicide prevention, visit AFSP.org.

    narkj@phillynews.com

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well this sucks -

    White House shifts from Obama practice, will keep its visitor logs secret
    POSTED AT 3:21 PM ON APRIL 14, 2017 BY ALLAHPUNDIT


    Good lord. How do you govern with a message about “draining the swamp” while trying to avoid basic transparency about whom the president is meeting with?

    And how do you do it after having tweeted stuff like this?:...

    http://hotair.com/archives/2017/04/14/white-house-shifts-from-obama-practice-will-keep-its-visitor-logs-secret/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Now we won’t get to know which Goldman Sachs lobbyists are meeting with the president."

      Delete
    2. The swamp is being drained: The stuff being revealed is too ugly for the public to bear.

      Delete


  13. The Suicide Option

    He knows he can't win but it would be an unimaginable humiliation for him to back down:

    In a deadly game of dare, Kim Jong-un will take the suicide option, says MARK ALMOND

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4413342/In-deadly-game-dare-Kim-Jong-suicide.html#ixzz4eH3hXA7A

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is my argument for why it ain't gonna happen:

    Kim Jong-Un has ordered a new "Pleasure Troupe" of young women to entertain him.


    https://www.quora.com/North-Korea-What-are-the-most-eccentric-things-about-Kim-Jong-un

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you've nailed it.

      Why go to all the trouble of dying ? when all those lovelies are so close by ?

      Kim will not test a nuke this weekend.....

      Delete
    2. ....yet Tucker Carlson is reporting Kim appears to be preparing a nuclear test....

      Delete
    3. Keep telling Trump:



      This is a test!

      This is ONLY A TEST !

      Delete
  15. Speaking of suicide -

    He knows he can't win but it would be an unimaginable humiliation for him to back down: In a deadly game of dare, Kim Jong-un will take the suicide option, says MARK ALMOND
    By Mark Almond For The Daily Mail
    PUBLISHED: 18:31 EDT, 14 April 2017 | UPDATED: 20:34 EDT, 14 April 2017


    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4413342/In-deadly-game-dare-Kim-Jong-suicide.html#ixzz4eH6FGDAA

    ReplyDelete
  16. Speaking of suicide jumpers, I recall once watching on CNN with my Aunt when Muhammad Ali talked a young distraught black fellow down from a high window.

    This young fellow had been up there for quite some time, a crowd had gathered, the Police had tried to talk him down....and suddenly a big Limo drives up and out gets Ali....'come on down, son, I want to take you home with me, have a talk, have a dinner....'

    It worked !

    My Aunt loved Muhammad Ali.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Snake !

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1446097/Incredible-moment-snake-leaps-man-opening-cafe-door.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can pull the white dot with your mouse to see the frame you want.

      (not covered with ads.)

      ...yet

      Delete