+
upworthy
More

This traffic cop has prevented over 200 people from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Not all heroes wear capes. Some, like former California Highway Patrol officer Kevin Briggs, wear a traffic cop uniform and a smile.

[rebelmouse-image 19477905 dam="1" original_size="735x368" caption="All screenshots from "The Traffic Cop Who Became the Guardian of the Golden Gate."" expand=1]All screenshots from "The Traffic Cop Who Became the Guardian of the Golden Gate."


Former San Francisco Sergeant Kevin Briggs has been credited with preventing more than 200 people from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.    

The iconic — but notorious — California landmark has gained a conflicting reputation as one of the sites that has the highest number of suicides in the United States: Almost 1,700 people have jumped to their deaths.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

One of those people was a man named James, who jumped right in front of Briggs — and that experience changed his life forever.  

“I know that when someone gets to that level, it’s very, very difficult to get through to them and to get them to come back. But, we have to try.”

Briggs learned more about James' history, including his struggles with mental illness. It was a common thread that Briggs saw during his years as a highway traffic patrol cop. He saw people contemplate suicide often, and his job was to work with them to see if he could get them back.

But Briggs didn't have a lot of experience with mental illness. His office didn't have any training on how to work with people struggling with mental illness, so he researched it himself. He went through the basics of mental illness, the stage of various illnesses, and how to approach someone contemplating suicide.

His dedication mattered. In 2005, Briggs was photographed talking Kevin Berthia off the bridge ledge in an iconic photo.

Berthia was one of many people who Briggs helped to save. As he gained more experience with preventing people from jumping off the bridge, he asked them about his methods — including what worked and what didn't — so he could help more people.

“It took a lot of courage to go over that rail," said Briggs. "Personally, I think it takes even more courage to come back.”

While the academic understanding of mental illness was relatively new to Briggs, suicide was not. He lost his grandfather to suicide as a child.

A young Kevin Briggs.

Briggs was aware that mental illness could be in his family, but his own diagnosis was still a surprise.

It wasn't until he saw his doctor for a routine physical that he was diagnosed with depression. This revelation only pushed Briggs to learn and help others even more.

“If I’m experiencing these things — if I can help somebody else through a very, very dark time, I’m gonna. I’m gonna do my darnedest to try and do that.”    

Though retired, Briggs shows no signs of slowing down on his journey to help others. He began giving speeches around the country — including a powerful Ted Talk — on how to develop the necessary courage and skills to help others suffering with suicidal thoughts.

In 2014, Kevin Briggs gave a moving Ted Talk on the bridge between suicide and life.

Initially afraid of being ridiculed at his job or ostracized by friends, Briggs ended up receiving numerous letters of gratitude from people struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, who thanked him for his work and influence in their lives. Through his work, he's gained numerous new friends around the world, and he's changed lives while doing it.  

“I want to reach as many people as I can, to show them that there is a way not only to survive, but to thrive.”  

Watch Kevin Briggs talk about his life-saving work below:

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less

An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less