Sea Lion
In 2000, a then-19-year-old Kevin Hines jumped off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
Hines, 33, is now a mental health worker who shares his story of mental illness and depression at events around the world, hoping to prevent other suicide attempts.
“I’m one of less than one per cent to have survived that fall,” he said.
“I’ve been given the gift of a second chance of life so many times.”
At a recent conference in Australia, Hines shared his incredible survival story, which included a very unlikely hero.
After hitting the water — the impact broke his back and shattered his vertebrae — he thought he spotted a shark circling beneath him.
"I was freaking out in those waters. And I was thinking I didn’t die there and now I am going to die here in the water because of a creature of some sort," he told AFP.
"I really thought it was a shark and I thought it was going to take off a leg and I was panicking.”
"And then it just didn’t, it just kept circling beneath me. I remember floating atop the water and this thing just bumping me, bumping me up."
Years after his jump, a witness told Hines that the creature bumping him to the surface wasn’t a shark: it was a sea lion.
Hines himself admits that he wasn’t in the most lucid of mental states that day, and responded to skepticism about the sea-lion story in a 2013 blog post:
"There are a large number of reporters and speculators who have claimed it was really a seal, and even those who have claimed that there was nothing but me in that water,” he wrote.
'However, I know that it was a sea lion and it is not a statistic anomaly. Marine animals (dolphins, sea lions) and other creatures have helped save humans and other animals from dangerous situations all over the world.”
“I say believe it or don’t, that’s completely up to you. I know the truth, and in this case and that is all that matters.”
Hines also credits his survival to a fast-acting woman who immediately reported his jump to the coast guard. Her call helped rescuers know his exact location, and they were able to reach him before he succumbed to hypothermia or injuries.
Thanks to a successful 14-hour back surgery, Hines was able to fully regain mobility.
A year after his suicide attempt, in an attempt to find closure, Hines and his father dropped a flower from the bridge at the spot where he had jumped.
“The flower hit the water and, two feet to the right, popped up a sea lion. So, I know I’m supposed to be here, and I know there’s a reason why. I guess, I’ll just be finding that reason out as life goes on,” Hines told Seattle’s KUOW.
In 2013, Hines published the book Cracked, Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt. A long-time advocate for a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge, he’s also behind a documentary about deaths at the bridge and why it took almost 80 years to install a suicide prevention net.
Hines hopes his story will reach others contemplating suicide.
"This is absolutely my life’s passion and my life’s work," he said of his mental-health advocacy.
”What really I’m talking about here, it crosses all boundaries … every race, creed, colour. Everyone is touched by this somehow, some way … suicide prevention is everyone’s business.”
"I think the message is very, very simple: you don’t have to die this way. And that today is not tomorrow," he said.
If you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide — or you’d like more information about suicide prevention — here’s a list of suicide-prevention resources available across Canada.
credit: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/mental-health-advocate-recalls-2000-suicide-190427147.html
