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To Coronado Bridge suicide jumpers: Don't do it. You may live!

By Kate Kowsh

July 31, 2006

San Diego--With a reputation for being one of the top five deadliest bridges in the world, the Coronado Bridge may seem like the perfect launching point for those who’ve decided to take their lives. With a vertical clearance of approximately 200 feet at the highest point, it sure makes for a hell of a view on the way down. But potential jumpers may want to reconsider—some people have actually taken the plunge and lived.

Looking East, toward all your problems

According to Rennie Gregorio at the Port of San Diego’s Records Office, in the past 18 years alone, 113 people have hiked up the 2.12-mile beast, mounted its 34 inch-high barricade and plunged to their death in San Diego Harbor. But, that’s just the number of people who’ve actually jumped. Scores more have stood on its ledges and contemplated before ultimately being talked down.

In fact, so many people have threatened suicide from the bridge that blue signs with the words, “Suicide Counseling Crisis Team 24 Hours,” and its toll-free number are posted along the bridge.

Although the chances of escaping injury after such a drop onto the cement-like surface of the water are slim, some have actually lived. Captain Boyd Long with the San Diego Police Dept. unknowingly encountered one of these instances while patrolling the downtown area one December evening in 1988. Capt. Boyd was driving over the Coronado Bridge when he ran across what he thought was just a stalled car on the side of the road.

“I pulled up behind the car and put the lights on it, you know, thinking the car was just an abandoned vehicle and someone nearby was looking for help,” he explained.

About 80 yards ahead of him, Capt. Long said he noticed a Hispanic male in his early twenties walking away from him.

“He looked back at me, but continued walking. I thought it was kind of odd,” he explained. “So, I yelled to get his attention. He stopped, turned around and said, ‘Leave me alone.’”

Then the man climbed onto the concrete barrier and readied to leap.

Long said that he tried to console the man and get him talking about what was bothering him. In the man’s case, he had just had a fight with his girlfriend and decided he didn’t want to live anymore.

“I talked to him probably for about a good 45 seconds more and then, all of a sudden, he makes a statement like, ‘You know what? I’m done talking to you,’ and he basically takes a dive off the south side of the bridge,” Capt. Long recollected.

The man had jumped, mid-span, into the briny darkness below. “At the time, what was going through my mind was, it was almost like it was unbelievable that it had actually happened--Someone went off the bridge when I was standing there, talking to them,” Capt. Long said.

“So I immediately went to the edge and looked over and watched him fall, and I’ll never forget this: I watched him tumble in the air, all the way down and hit the water.”

Unbelievably, though the man didn’t die. “I would say probably 30 or 40 seconds pass, and I’m looking down there, and all of a sudden, now I can see the water swirling and I hear him yell, ‘Help!’” Capt. Long said.

“The current must have been coming in because very swiftly, it started taking him south toward the south end of the bay,” Long added. “By the time the boat got out there and plucked him out of the water, he probably had floated a good 300 yards south of the bridge.”

The answer: The view, baby! With the low barriers, drivers an unobstructed, panoramic view of San Diego’s cityscape while crossing. But, in what seems like an almost unequal concession, there are no sidewalks on the bridge.

The jumper that Capt. Long encountered contacted him 12 years later, in October 2000. “He wanted to come and do a couple of things,” Long recalled. “First, tell me that his life has completely turned around since that day, and second, say he had a child and he really understands the value of life.”

“He also wanted to apologize for putting me through a stress that he felt he put me through that night up on the bridge.”

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Kate Kowsh is a San Diego freelance writer and frequent contributor to Vyuz.com.