Frederic Lecouturier, 55, a surfer riding waves at the Southern end of San Francisco’s Golden Gate on Thursday March 10, 2011 looked toward the bridge and saw someone fall into the water from above, according to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“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.
The 17-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, was on a field trip walking across the bridge with 45 of his classmates from Windsor, California when he apparently decided to jump from the bridge. According to the article he escaped with minor injuries. According to the Chronicle “99 percent of the estimated 1,500-plus people who have jumped from the bridge since it opened in 1937” have died. If Lecouturier hadn’t been there, there might have been one more death.
[Link: San Francisco Chronicle]
