Guardian’ Officer Has Saved Over 200 People From Jumping Off the Golden Gate Bridge
Good News Network
By McKinley Corbley
Feb 18, 2019
“We talked for 92 minutes about everything that I was dealing with. My daughter, her first birthday was the next month. And you made me see that if nothing else, I need to live for her.”
It’s a police officer’s job to protect and serve – but Kevin Briggs never thought that his job would lead him to save over 200 people from committing suicide.
Briggs has been dubbed the “Guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge” because of his awe-inspiring history of talking people down from the edge of the historic landmark.
The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the world’s most notorious spots for suicide attempts. Briggs, who is a California Highway Patrol officer, was first stationed on the bridge in 1994 – but he says that he had never been trained on how to handle suicidal people.
As he encountered more and more distraught individuals, however, he began to pick up more and more strategies on how he could talk to them efficiently. Whenever he successfully managed to coax someone off of the ledge, he would ask them about which parts of his approach were helpful and which ones weren’t.
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