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Does The Golden Gate Bridge Suicide Barrier Save Lives?
The value of suicide barriers remains unproven.
Warning: This article discusses death by suicide. If you are thinking of harming or killing yourself, the nationwide suicide and crisis hotline x988 is staffed 24 hours a day.
In January 2024, after seven years and $398 million, workers completed a suicide prevention barrier for San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Since then, local mental health experts and national newspapers have celebrated how the measure saves lives. A recent report appears to back up the claim.
Since its construction in 1933, the Golden Gate Bridge has been deemed a “suicide magnet” — one of the top destinations in the world drawing people to kill themselves. More than 2,000 individuals are estimated to have died falling from the bridge. Surveillance cameras and direct observations documented at least 30 deaths a year throughout the last two decades. Tallies from further in the past are thought to be underestimates, since some bodies are never recovered.
In the first year after completion of the barrier there were only eight suicides.
As a psychiatrist, having known two individuals who died jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, I strongly support efforts to reduce suicide. But in my assessment…
