Summary Of Mary Roach's Essay Don 'T Jump'

A Barrier to Death

Dying is never lovely. Mary Roach, defines in her essay Don’t Jump, her craving to securely experience the sensations of dropping from a precipice, as if she wanted to end her life. Suggesting in the essay, “that jumping-off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge would be a lovely way to go” (Roach, 2001). There are people that are desperate in life and choose this picturesque setting; the beauty of protruding boulders speckled within the grassy covered hills; the silhouette of San Francisco pasted against the horizon or the white capped blue Pacific waves to edge of Earth. If the scenery does not relax, the soothing repetition of the bay hammering the shore and the tower pylons has a hypnotic affect. Such beauty, yet there

are individuals that travel to the bridge to end their misery. Conceivably selecting this landmark to make their last statement on Earth to always remember. Ms. Roach discusses how fencing could hinder some from jumping. The scenic bridge does not cause people to choose death over life; the bridge authority does not implement a method to reduce the casualties and tarnish the vista that is worth the expense.
Mary’s perception to the thrill of the rapid descent was overcome by the harsh consequenses in the act of suicide.

Interviewing people that have experienced the results of people leaping off the span provided the sad reality of those that seek to leave their agony. Often using morbid humor to make her point, she quoted Sgt. Lopez, “A lot of times, we pull bodies out with crabs hanging off them, speculating that crabs consider people a delicacy as much as people consider crabs” (Roach, 2001). The physics of how people perish is described in graphic detail to vulgar extremes. The majority of her writing is devoted to the descriptive recovery and unattractive nature of the jumper’s condition. Explaining how there are systems in place on the bridge to spot possible attempts to dive off the bridge Sgt. Lopez feels, “if they can get there before people jump there is a ninety-nine percent chance to stop them.” The only solution noted in the article is to put up fencing to keep people from jumping; however, she does not expand on the safety issue only to summarize with humor. Comparing the Bridge District’s reluctance to spoil the view by incorporating a barrier, to the spoiled view of a decomposed corpse (Roach,

2001).
On a typical San Francisco day, the sky was dark blue with puffy white clouds scattered to the western horizon. On the Marin County side of the narrows, away from San Francisco I parked my car to begin the four thousand steps journey to reach the center of the orange monster. Thinking I was the only brave soul to trek across the bridge I was among the mass of gawkers crossing the span. From the center of the span, the deck pulsates and flexes from the speeding vehicles traveling from beginning to end. The orange steel is cold to the touch and feels weighty. Being of short stature and terrified of heights the distance between my feet, the four-foot railing grew inappropriate as the span rose higher over the bay. My hands began to perspire with the fear of an earthquake or an errant whale hitting the support to send me flying off the deck to my demise became an abstract reality. The tourists gather at the highest point, to look down at the ships moving against the strong currents, the sea gulls and pelicans diving as a body off the span, though not to die but to feed from the bay. The view makes you feel euphoric, the beauty at each position, the majesty of the structure that engulfs my small stature providing stability. The dizzying height provides a flashback to a sad moment in my life when I thought jumping was an escape from my own pain. I understood being alone on the walkway with no one caring or attempting to make it a little harder to swing my legs over the railing.
They do not dive with a bungee cord; they leap with the hurt in their lives thinking that this is a certain method to end their desolation.

At one time, the city council considered a resolution to repel the jumpers, the installation of a net under the structure to capture the bodies before they could be broken. Approved in 1998, no financial resources were made available to further the protective apparatus. In 2008, a poll had half the surveyed reject a barrier feeling it would not prevent suicide and felt using tax money to prevent suicide was futile. However, to separate opposing lanes of traffic, the Authority spent $26.5 million for a center median to prevent head-on collisions. Since 1970, there were sixteen death cause by head-on collisions and 1129 known suicides (Gross, 2013), so the body pieces continue to be picked up. The cost of the first responders, medical examiners and the Coast Guard would seem to more than then the millions spent that would of help prevent sixteen head-on collision deaths. The distracted driver, the intoxicated driver appears to have more value than the suicidal

jumper.
Life has many safety nets, as the bungee cord on Mary’s leg over the river. Unable to protect us always, we select the risks that comfort us when we fail. Others lose their path discovering the awe-inspiring elevation of the Golden Gate Bridge as the solution to their lack of security. Outsiders tend to distance themselves from preventing the tragic act of throwing oneself from a bridge, yet the cameras, crisis phones and suicide interlopers send an opposite message to those considering a leap. I once had reach the bottom, climbing 10 stories to sit on a ledge thinking all was worthless in life. I could hear the calls of people below, JUMP! I was tricked and saved by brave souls that cared and believed in me, it was not my time. If only the Board of Directors for the Golden Gate Highway and Transportation District could be as brave as the officers that saved my life seventeen years ago. The jumpers seek to eliminate the hurt; they escape the safety of the bridge deck to leap without a net or cord to save them. In reality, they only leave their loved ones with the horrid recollections of the method chosen and the results never to think of the beautiful scenery of the Golden Gate Bridge. Later, washing up onto the breakwaters or coastline awaiting the unknown hands that gather their fragmented and lifeless corpses.