On June 13, a passerby who saw a man walking along the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge called for help. When California Highway Patrol officers got there, the man claimed to be out for a walk, but after further questioning, he made a break for the edge of the bridge, said Commander Dominick Palera with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
That’s when the officers wrestled with the man, got him into their patrol car, and started him on the way to get some help, Palera said. If no one had been there to stop him, that man could have been the 45th person to jump off the bridge since it was built in 1963—and probably not the last, the commander noted.
In 2005, Palera was the commander in charge of the area of Santa Barbara County that included the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge. His officers were often first on the scene at a suicide, and they had to alert the coroner’s office and get a search and rescue team to the site to locate the body.
Palera is also the person who showed the coroner’s reports to officials from Caltrans, and started the process that has led to the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge Suicide Barrier project.
“We get traffic data, but the suicide numbers went to the sheriff-coroner’s office,” said Caltrans District 5 public information officer Jim Shivers.
The Cold Spring Canyon Bridge was built in 1963. Since then, at least 44 people have jumped from the structure that rises 400 feet above Cold Spring Canyon on State Route 154. At least 31 of those deaths happened in the last 25 years, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
Until Palera brought their attention to it, Shivers said Caltrans had no idea that section of road was so dangerous—not to drivers, but to people intent on ending on their own lives.
“We’re moving forward to make that location safer,” Shivers said.
The barrier project is currently in the planning stage, with a draft Environmental Impact Report available for public review and comment. Shivers said that Caltrans is taking the public’s opinions into account, but ultimately it will be up to the department to make the final decisions.
The EIR lists the safety of people as one of the reasons to move forward with the project. Search-and-rescue volunteers who hike down into the steep canyon to retrieve the bodies also face risk, Palera said. Because of the rough terrain, bodies have to be lifted out of the canyon by a rope system, and traffic shuts down while the operation takes place.
Palera also spoke of other dangers, including the case of a deputy who grabbed a man jumping off the bridge and almost got pulled off with him. Fortunately, they’re both still alive.
“We don’t make the determination of whose life to save and who not to save,” Palera said. “We’re sworn to help.”
Adding a barrier to the bridge is expected to cost about $1 million, Shivers said. That cost includes just the construction; the project total will be about $3.2 million when other aspects, such as costs associated with the EIR and staff time, are factored in. The price is high, Shivers explained, because this is the first barrier project that Caltrans has undertaken. Everything has to be planned from scratch.
“It’s almost a custom-made project,” Shivers said. “It’s never been done before.”
Money for the barrier is being taken out of the State Highway Operations and Protection Program. Funds from the program are available for projects that improve public safety. The county is not spending any money to help build the barrier, Shivers said. Still, confusion over financial issues has caused some of the only opposition the barrier project has received, Palera said. Some county residents have questioned whether the money should be spent on other services that help people who may some day attempt to commit suicide. Such a financial arrangement isn’t possible, however, as the funds are specifically set aside for Caltrans public safety projects.
“You can’t take this pool of money from a road safety project and give it to another organization, like mental health,” Palera said.
Members of Friends of the Bridge have spoken out at public meetings against the barrier project. Members couldn’t be reached for comment as of press time, but one member, UCSB professor Garrett Glasgow, wrote a report on the project.
In the report, he says that there’s no proof that building a barrier will save lives, as people can commit suicide in another way if denied access to the bridge.
Lisa Firestone, research and education director for the Glendon Association in Santa Barbara, disputed that claim. She said that suicide is something that happens in the moment, while a person is feeling especially distraught or vulnerable. Take the means away from that person, and they may well change their minds, she said.
“They’re ambivalent, and they’re in crisis at that moment in time,” she said. “The people who have been saved off of the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge are glad to be alive.”
Firestone pointed out that, unlike other methods of committing suicide, jumping off of the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge is always fatal. No one has ever survived the plunge.
“It’s not that we think barriers are the only thing to do for suicide prevention in this county, but it’s an important piece of the puzzle,” she said.
The Cold Spring Canyon Bridge has also become a suicide destination, she explained. Its location and reputation as somewhere to jump will attract more people in the coming years, she said, unless a barrier is built.
Such a scenario, Shivers said, is almost guaranteed to happen. Caltrans is moving ahead with the project, he said, and hopes to have the barrier built by the summer of 2010. Right now, the most pressing decision is whether to build a grid/mesh barrier or a vertical one. Either would be nearly impossible to climb.
“We view this as something that will save lives,” Shivers said. m Contact Sports Editor Sarah E. Thien at sthien@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 19-26, 2008.