03.29.07, gouki, melbourne, vic, aus., (01.17.07, 4.30am, hit water, lived), I
know all this because i am the jumper. I jumped off the middle of the Westgate
Bridge in Melbourne. I was sober. I wanted to disappear. I slowly drove up the
bridge, telling myself to go head first, waiting for a nice gap in the minimal
traffic. I didn't think anyone should have to see me do it, why would i care for
these strangers when i was well aware of the hole my death would leave for
family and friends? Authorities are quick to get to potential jumpers on the
Westgate. I knew this. So I knew I had to jump quick. I parked my car next to
fence. Leaving my shoes on the passenger seat. Strangely, I really liked those
shoes and did not want them to get wet. Within 20 seconds of parking, I hopped
out of my car, jogged into the middle lane. From here i got a run up, jumped up
on the front tyre of my car, ran across the bonnet, and then off the fence. But
I did not go head first. In my mind there are two reasons why. A. in taking the
running jump style i used i simply jumped out and did not dive. and B. I had a
strange out of body experience which i am not sure began before i jumped or just
as i did, taking my mind off diving. I liken it to roadrunner, Warner Bros.
style cartoons. say when Wile E. Coyote goes off a cliff he
hovers...ponders...then realises he is going down. When I jumped out off the
fence it did not feel like i fell at all. I saw a vision of myself (oddly
wearing different clothes) falling, looking back up at me. Then I caught up with
the vision and just remember the sickening slap as i hit the water. I don't
think i even got knocked out. I swam to the surface, looked up, and thought
"does heaven or hell have a westgate bridge? oh fuck. I'm not dead." My next
thought was maybe i was mortally wounded. I could barely breath. I thought i'd
just go with the flow of the water and eventually i'd die. The water was very
choppy, unusually so. I still wonder if this contributed to my minimal injury.
after floating with the water for a while, gasping, i just knew i wasn't really
that hurt. I swam to the edge climbed up on the sand and lay and waited. Police
got to me first. I didn't say a word to them and they understood. What else
could i have been trying to do? I do not remember the ambulance ride. I think
they gave me a lot of morphine because I had damaged my spine, how badly? they
obviously do not know yet. I just remember suddenly being in an emergency room,
still finding it hard to breath, in a lot of pain, a whole bunch of medics
buzzing around me. They told me i had broken my spine. I was beyond caring.
Thinking "fuck, the westgate bridge is meant to be a sure thing and i'm gunna
come out a paraplegic. this is fucked." Then I realised all i had to do was try
and move my legs. I could! Perfectly well. I was sort of smiling about that
despite the nurses telling me rather adamantly to stop moving them! then my
parents arrived. and i cried. silently.
Turns out I fractured 3 vertebrae in my spine. Compression fracture of L1 and
T12, and the one above T12 was split clean in the middle. and some fluid leaked
in my skull or something. I landed in a seated position, my whole underside was
black with bruising and half my face was black. Apparently I was bleeding really
badly out the nose when they found me. I spent 5 days in the trauma unit before
i could walk. And i've understandably spent some time in a psychiatric clinic, a
month all up. that was a little over two months ago that I jumped. I have
totally recovered physically. I don't even need physio. Other patients in the
clinic were calling me wolverine because of my sideburns and that i survived and
i was healing so quick. then i got a haircut and somehow the nickname spiderman
caught on. I get a slight back ache sometimes but that is fuck all when stacked
next to what i did. Westgate is 58 metres high plus the fence, nearly 200ft. my
friend worked out it is a 2.7 sec fall, and i hit the water at 87km/h. i think
something like 1 in 10 people survive the westgate. but i wonder how many people
have gotten away with it like i did. It is a crippling fall. I feel i have
transcended what it is to feel suicidal. what i did was something very
monumental for me. I look at the world through the eyes of a man that didn't
fuck up a pussy shit suicide attempt, rather a man that survived a pretty
serious one. In a strange way i feel like jumping off that bridge is the best
thing i have ever done. It should have killed me but it didn't do shit to me.
They're was something very romantic for me and the notion of jumping off a
bridge. I loved the Westgate Bridge. I love it more now. But I will not jump off
it again. I don't know what my purpose is, but at least i feel like there is one
for me somewhere now.
-gouki
(thanks for your story. glad you made out
with the attitude you now have. make the most of your second chance.)
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