Second chance at life for boy who jumped 'for kicks'

Windsor teen survives Golden Gate Bridge jump

Excerpt:

The boy jumped at 11:15 a.m. from the east sidewalk near the south tower, the CHP said. He was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he was expected to survive.

Some witnesses said he broke his tailbone and damaged his lungs in the fall, but a Windsor Unified School District press release said he suffered no severe injuries beyond bruising and tenderness. Hospital officials said they cannot release specific information.

Frederic Lecouturier, 55, said he was surfing under the bridge when he saw the boy drop into the waves.

"I thought, 'Well, he's going to die,' and then it was a miracle when he popped up alive," said Lecouturier, of San Rafael. "I paddled out there, and he told me he jumped 'for kicks.'

"That's when I lost it and told him what he did was wrong, that life is precious, and he should not take risks like that. I mean, he's a kid, he's got his whole life ahead of him."

Lecouturier said the boy was about 5 feet tall, "built like a wrestler" and had a brown ponytail. "There was a stiff wind coming out of the south, and I think that broke his fall and helped save him," he said.

Surviving the drop was remarkable considering the spot the student leaped from is more than 200 feet off the water - and 99 percent of the estimated 1,500-plus people who have jumped from the bridge since it opened in 1937 died from the fall.

Comment: Image source. Also in the Star Tribune. In my youth I both dove and jumped off 30 foot platforms. The force even from 30' is something.