Golden Gate Bridge suicide jump survivor shares how he managed to survive

Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing

A man who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge was saved by a miraculous set of circumstances.

Kevin Hines was just 19-years-old in September 2000 when he leapt from the Golden Gate Bridge in California in an attempt to commit suicide.

The drop was some 240 feet and despite hitting the water at an estimated 75 miles per hour, he miraculously survived the drop.

Nonetheless, the impact severely damaged three of his vertebrae, and he was unable to use his legs.

Not only that, but after surviving the fall Hines came to the realisation that he didn't want to die.

Speaking about the ordeal, he said: "I thought it was too late. I said to myself, 'What have I done, I don't want to die'. I realised I made the greatest mistake of my life."

His injuries from the impact meant that Hines was not able to stay afloat.

"My legs were completely immobile. I had shattered my lower vertebrae into shards like glass," said Hines.

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He added: "I break the surface, I bob up and down in the water, I can't stay afloat... I'm going to drown."

Things got even worse when he noticed that something was circling him in the water, and immediately thought that a shark had taken interest in him.

But it wasn’t a shark at all. In fact, it was a sea lion which had come up to him while he was in the water.

Some onlookers even believed that the sea lion had tried to help keep the struggling Kevin afloat while he was in the water, as the combination of his injuries and his clothes meant that he couldn’t do that by himself.

Fortunately, Kevin was rescued from the water and went on to recover from his injuries.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Not only that, but the impetus from surviving his suicide attempt spurred him on to make a documentary about suicide called Suicide: The Ripple Effect, which claims that on average around 115 people will be impacted by any one person committing suicide.

He also wrote a book called Cracked Not Broken, Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt, and hoped that his sharing his story would help ‘at least one individual’ to realise that there is a way around their feelings of suicide.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741