US: Indian American Teen Dies After Jumping From Golden Gate Bridge

WASHINGTON: According to his parents and US Coast Guard officials, an Indian American kid is thought to have died after jumping off San Francisco's renowned Golden Gate Bridge.

A bicycle, phone, and backpack belonging to the 16-year-old youngster were discovered on the bridge. According to them, the 12th student is thought to have leaped off the bridge on Tuesday at about 4:58 p.m.

The coastal guards reported that after they established they saw "a human" drop from the bridge, they promptly launched a two-hour search and rescue operation.

There is not much evidence to support the boy's survival, they claimed.

According to community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria, this is the fourth instance in which an Indian American has jumped off the Golden Bridge in what appears to be an attempt at suicide.

25 people took their own lives on the Golden Gate Bridge last year, and approximately 2,000 suicide cases have been reported since the bridge opened in 1937, according to the Bridge Rail Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that seeks to prevent suicides on the bridge.

On both ends of the 1.7-mile bridge, the state is attempting to build a 20-foot-wide iron mesh. The project, which was supposed to be finished by January of this year, is now running behind schedule and costing more to build than it did, to begin with—from 137.26 million euros to about 386.64 million euros. 2018 saw the beginning of work on this project.

34 persons are thought to have survived after jumping from Golden Gate Bridge in 2013. Others drown or pass away from cold, while the rest of the people pass away suddenly due to internal wounds.

In order to deter people from jumping, a number of safeguards have been put in place, including phone hotlines, patrols by emergency services, and bridge employees. Although constructing a suicide barrier had previously been deemed impossible, in 2014 the bridge's directors authorised a plan for a net below the bridge's deck that would extend out on either side, as opposed to side barriers at the rails as had long been suggested.

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