A young father stood on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge in March 2005, ready to leap.
Kevin Berthia, then 22 and living in Oakland, California, had reached his breaking point.
According to People magazine, the desperate young man was stopped by the voice of a California Highway Patrol sergeant who would later become his closest friend.
Berthia had awoken that morning after years of depression and told himself he would jump.
He drove to the famous landmark, left his keys in his car, and walked along the nearly two-mile span.
Looking at the cold San Francisco Bay below, he said he thought, “The water is my freedom. I’m ready,” People reported.
Soon, he climbed over the railing and stood on a narrow metal conduit, 220 feet above the water.
“I started my countdown,” Berthia recalled. “And I braced myself for impact.”
Then came what he still calls “a miracle.”
Sgt. Kevin Briggs, who patrolled the bridge and became known as the “guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge,” approached him.
“Hi,” Briggs said gently. “Is it okay if I come over and speak with you for a while? I’m not going to touch you. I’m just here to talk with you and to listen.”
For the next 90 minutes, Briggs listened as Berthia shared his “deepest, darkest secrets.”
Berthia eventually climbed back over the rail and was taken to a hospital, beginning a long road of recovery.
But as People magazine noted, the years that followed were difficult. He spent nearly a decade in another bout of depression.
Their paths crossed again in 2013, when the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention honored Briggs.
Berthia was brought to New York to present the award and was stunned to finally meet the officer who had saved him.
“We’ve been friends ever since,” said Briggs, now retired. Berthia calls them “more like brothers.”
“What happened that day had nothing to do with him being a white man and me being black,” Berthia told People. “It’s all about the power of connection, human connection.”
Today, both men travel the country together, speaking to conferences about mental health and suicide prevention.
Briggs says on his personal website that his goal is “to promote suicide prevention and mental health awareness by breaking the prejudice and discrimination associated with them.”
Berthia, now 42, tells audiences, “Never in a million years did I think that my living in this dark place could help others.”
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