California’s Highway Patrol Officer Kevin Briggs has been patrolling the famous Golden Gate Bridge day in, day out for more than 23 years now as The Golden Gate Bridge has been one of the world’s most famous spots where people commit suicide. Briggs was first stationed on the bridge in the year 1994, but he says that he had never been trained on how to handle suicidal people. Briggs further added to this saying that There were four to six cases of suicidal folks on the bridge each and every month. And he had no idea about this, and he grew up in Marin Country, which connects to San Francisco via that Golden Gate Bridge. He had no training to handle these types of situations.
One of his most significant meetings was with a man named Kevin Berthia back in the year 2005. At that time, Berthia was 22 years. He was drowning in medical bills from caring for his prematurely-born infant daughter. In the center of his depression, Berthia climbed onto the edge of the bridge and prepared to take his own life. But then he was reached by Briggs. Though Kevin was very aggressive at the initial stage, later Briggs managed to handle his mood. Two of them had a 92 minutes talk discussing Kevin’s crises. The Officer Briggs provided him with only a few words of compassion or encouragement throughout. Kevin did most of the talking, and at the end of the discussion, he made the courageous decision to climb back over the railing and face his depression head-on. Briggs has saved the lives of over 200 people going for suicide, earning himself the title “Guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge.”
