Officials Resist Call for More Suicide Protection on Bridge

We care about you. Call the 24-hour suicide counseling service at 236-3339. Telephone at toll plaza.

Mid-September in 1984, six signs with this message were installed along the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, facing in both directions. It was the first step taken to stop people from killing themselves by leaping off the bridge. The phone has a direct line to suicide counselors. Video cameras were also installed to monitor traffic and people wandering on the bridge.

Now, four years since that first step, some people say another step toward suicide intervention needs to be taken.

Since the bridge opened in 1969, 147 people have committed suicide by throwing themselves over the bridge’s 32-inch tall wall. The bridge’s highest point is 246 feet from the water. The last fatality occurred Wednesday, when a 27-year-old Navy man jumped.

Most jumpers have been males in their 20s and 30s; about six were still in their teens. In 1984, shortly before the signs were posted, one of the 147 was 18-year-old Mia Vigil.

“Mia was a very bright child and extremely good-looking and talented,” said Mia’s father, Al Vigil, who founded Survivors of Suicide, a support group for victims’ families. “But she was a perfectionist and didn’t bend very well; she saw everything in black and white. . . . At an impulsive moment, she rushed to her death by jumping out of her car and over the railing of the bridge. Her car was still running, the lights were on, the radio was on and the door was left wide open.”

Vigil said that, since Mia’s death, he and his wife, Linda, have spoken to more than 350 families and found that, in most cases, suicide is an impulsive act. He believes that, if most people had had a few more seconds to reevaluate, they would still be alive.

Vigil argues for another effort to prevent suicides off the bridge. He suggested either building a screen barrier around the bridge that would not disturb the view or installing a thin wire to shock anyone who leans on the wall.

“A screen barrier or a charged wire would make it a little more difficult for people to jump,” Vigil said. “It would force people to stop and think. Suicide is a preventable death. Not in every case, but intervention has saved tens of thousands. That bridge causes death. The signs help, but there needs to be better intervention.”

The phone and signs were installed after concerned citizens and county mental health officials formed a committee to determine ways to ease the problem.

The committee wanted a barrier built along the bridge, making it virtually impossible to jump. They settled for the signs and phone when Caltrans, which owns the bridge, decided that the barrier would cost more than $1 million. Some Coronado residents also argued that the barrier would disturb the view from the bridge.

“We’re talking about human lives, not what looks good,” said Dr. Dennis K. McCormack, a Coronado psychologist and a member who sought the barrier. “The money is there, it’s just a matter of earmarking it for this kind of project.

“It’s sad when society reaches a point where we care so little,” he continued. “Every person who jumps off that bridge isn’t responsible for all their problems--we’re all involved.”

Jim Larson, a Caltrans spokesman, said cost is no longer a factor because the $47-million bridge has been paid off since April of last year. He said the traffic flow is roughly 55,000 daily and the toll revenue is about $8 million yearly, which goes mainly to Coronado traffic improvements. “Maintenance obstacles” stand in the way of the barrier.

“We were talking initially about putting up a barrier,” Larson said, “but that couldn’t stop people from actually getting over it.” Moreover, a barrier would bar maintenance workers and painters from working under the bridge, he said.

More Phones Considered

Another idea brought up by the committee was installing more phones on the bridge. A phone, such as the existing one on the Coronado side behind the toll booths, cannot be installed at the bridge’s center, where most jumps occur, because there is no shoulder or walkway on the bridge, Larson said.

“Someone seeing a phone and not thinking might stop their car in the middle of the lane,” he said. Caltrans employees agreed that putting more phones along the bridge is not a solution but an added danger.

“The pranks would be unbelievable,” said Phillip Needham, a Caltrans tow-truck driver since 1973. “If we put more phones along the bridge, it would just give the sailors who get wild in the night something more to vandalize.” Needham said that, in his 15 years traveling the bridge, he has spoken to about 50 desperate people threatening to jump. He said he talked about 35 of them out of jumping.

He recalled one man just released from prison who sat on the bridge’s short wall, dangling his feet off the edge. The man said his mother died while he was in prison. He thought his father didn’t love him anymore.

“I told him, ‘Hey that’s a bad scene buddy, but things will get better,’ ” Needham remembered. When police arrived, he said, the man wouldn’t talk to them but kept asking for Needham. Finally, he said, the man was ready to come down and asked Needham to take his hand. Needham replied, “No.”

“You come to me, you make the first move,” Needham said he told the man. He said he wanted the man to remember that he had taken responsibility for his own actions.

Not all who jump die. Needham recalled three people who lived after leaping: After a mother jumped with her young child, her body broke the impact and her child survived. A woman who leaped once and lived, went back and jumped again and died. A 19-year-old man, who was an Acapulco cliff diver, tried to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge but was found alive and swimming when Harbor Police searched for his body.

Needham also said many he sees attempting to jump are teens under the influence of drugs and alcohol. But, echoing Larson’s sentiments, he said putting up a barrier is not a suicide solution because, “If anyone wants to commit suicide, they’re going to do it.”

On the receiving end of the bridge’s phone is the Crisis Team. Pam Blackwell, the Crisis Team spokeswoman, said that, since the phone has been installed, the team has received seven phone calls from potential suicides, none of whom ended up jumping. She said she has also received many calls from people who have driven over the bridge, seen the phone number and found another phone to call the hot line.

Original ‘Suicide Bridge’

Until the early 1960s, the Laurel Street Bridge, above California 163 in Balboa Park, was San Diego’s most notorious “suicide bridge.” According to Lee Scholey, the bridge’s maintenance supervisor and a 30-year city employee, about four people used to jump off the bridge yearly.

In the early 1960s, he said, an 8-foot-high, steel barrier was built extending beyond the 4-foot-high wall to prevent people from jumping and throwing debris from the bridge. Since the fence was built, he can remember only a few who have jumped. He added that he has had no maintenance problems because of the fence.

Coronado Police Chief Jerry Boyd said Caltrans has done everything possible to prevent jumpers, short of building a barrier. He said the five cameras on the bridge have reduced police response time to 1 minute.

“All basics have been covered, except making it physically impossible to jump off the bridge,” Boyd said. “Once they go off, there’s no turning back.”