On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. "I still see my hands coming off the railing," he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, "I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable-except for having just jumped."
Ken Baldwin, one of the few to survive attempted suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Even with a safety rope, the psychological barriers to stepping off the side of a bridge are far greater than than the physical ones- for the Forth Bridge, just a waist-high metal fence separates the service walkway and, well, nothing. But going over that fence and tiptoeing along its outer edge to the nearest girder seems to take an age. Your brain can't help but process the words from the guy still on that slightly more reassuring walkway as a hypothetical discussion of how one would lean back, let go, and drop from the structure, rather than instructions to do so. You discover that one hand isn't needed (wave, he suggests), and the vice-like grip your other has on the rope is your only way to control the descent.
Eventually, you kick out from the girder, letting that grip relax. The rope flows through your hand, and you're falling free, tied to the impossibly solid structure of the bridge but somehow disconnected from it, nothing within the reach of arms or legs until, fifty metres of grinning like a lunatic later, your feet find their way to Queensferry Beach. It's only then that you remember to breathe.
For those wondering what I'm
wittering on about, about six weeks back I was
avoiding work by looking around the
Facebook marketplace for an mp3 player, and the next thing I knew I'd agreed to
abseil off the Forth Rail Bridge for
NCH, the children's charity. Despite (or perhaps because) of having never abseiled before, nor having seen the Bridge up close, this seemed like a great idea at the time. Much of my
family were less convinced of the
sanity of this project (using the phrase 'jumping off a bridge' didn't help), but fellow
students and
noders offered plenty of encouragement, clearly less concerned about (or perhaps hoping for) potential
spectacular injury.
The first month or so, the fundraising campaign required more attention than the practicalities of what I'd actually signed up for. The week before, I subjected myself to the misery of public transport on a Sunday to scout out the location, catching a train to Inverkeithing and across the bridge itself for the first time. Despite the workmen repairing the vast patches of rust and peeled paint, the overwhelming impression was of stability, the iconic central sections helpfully dwarfing the viaduct from which I would be falling.
Today, from the perspective of the shore rather than the elevated railway, that drop doesn't seem so small. A participant abseiling head-first, screaming all the way, does not build confidence in the waiting room prior to kitting up. Don't look down is the obvious but impossible advice offered on dealing with the long walk out to the ropes. Passing through usually restricted areas gives a glimpse into the inner workings of network rail and this magnificient structure; just short of a hundred steps transport you from street level to a service walkway, under the tracks themselves. The views from here of the Forth of Firth and the underbelly of the bridge are breathtaking- the view straight down through the metal grille of the walkway are too, but on account of apprehension rather than any aesthetic quality. A train passes overhead, unseen but felt, showering rust. For each of the three sections we hesitantly walk along, we have to be clipped to a cable, lest mishap or madness sends us over the side. From that last cable, we are transferred to the safety rope, and invited to step over the side.
In the
adrenaline rush of landing it's easy to forget that today wasn't, ultimately, for me. Through this
stunt I was able to raise over £200 for NCH, and many thanks to the noders who contributed. The day as a whole must have raised thousands, with a steady stream of people from all walks of life - many
scared of heights to boot - taking that step over the edge for their
charity of choice. But you can do something equally amazing, just by giving something - anything - to a good cause today. What's holding you back?