Golden Gate jumpers have unlikely friends

Here's a building trades jurisdictional quick quiz: in San Francisco which trade has the task of talking down potential suicide jumpers from the Golden Gate Bridge?

If you guessed the iron workers, you'd be correct. If you're wondering why the iron workers have anything to do with talking down people who want to kill themselves, read on.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal published an article under the headline, "Ironworker volunteers will go over the rail to save you, but don't expect empathy." The article went on to describe how since the Golden Gate opened in 1937, iron workers have had a hand in talking down suicide jumpers, with a mix of tough love and a practical, no-nonsense approach.

"They may be looked at as unconventional," said bridge manager Kary Witt, "but they're pretty darn successful." Eve Meyer, director of suicide prevention for a counseling hotline in San Francisco, called the iron workers' methods "irregular," adding, "you can't argue with success."

The suicide prevention hotline estimates that about 30 people die jumping off the Golden Gate each year, and the iron workers save about 60 others.

The Wall Street Journal described a case that took place one early March morning in 1993, when a potential jumper wearing a trench coat and brandishing a kitchen knife jumped over a railing onto a catwalk on the bridge, threatening to leap into the Pacific Ocean 220 feet below. Police blocked several lanes of the bridge, backing up traffic for miles.

Glen Sievert, one of about 12 iron worker volunteers who respond to suicide calls, was rousted out of bed via a phone call to handle this incident. He wasn't happy. In fact, many of the bridge-men were said to hold the potential jumpers with contempt - they tie up traffic, distract them from their jobs and give the bridge a bad name.

"I don't like these people, I have my own problems," he told the Journal. "My job is to get them off the bridge. Beyond that, it's up to someone else."

The iron workers have the job in part because neither trained psychologists nor the professionals on the police force are willing to go over the rail onto the bridge's underbelly to talk down potential victims.

The article said the iron workers pitch themselves to potential jumpers as regular folks who know how tough life can be. If the person doesn't respond to casual conversation, the iron workers' goal is to buy time and establish rapport - then inch close enough to grab them.

One strategy is to ask for the person's watch or wallet, "since you're about to jump anyway." Another is to instill fear, describing in gruesome detail how painful it would be to hit that water at more than 100 miles an hour - and possibly come out of it alive.

The iron workers aren't unaffected by what they see - one father dropped his toddler off the bridge, then jumped himself. One iron worker described what he has seen as "pretty devastating."

The man in the trench coat on the catwalk kept Sievert and others at bay for hours with his knife, and never told them why he wanted to jump. He had tied a nylon rope around his neck and fastened the other end to the bridge. Finally, "fed up and exhausted" as the Journal put it, Sievert told the man to give up in 30 seconds or he would come after him.

The man saluted and jumped. But the rope was still around his neck, and Sievert and other workers grabbed it and hoisted him up - unconscious but alive.