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Ken Baldwin, (c) Chronicle / Christina Koci Hernandez

Letter from California: Jumpers: The New Yorker

Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

Interesting feature in The Times following up on Ken Baldwin.

Discussion of Baldwin, the bridge and the causes of suicide in The San Francisco Chronicle.