San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Finding Kyle
In search for answers to 18-year-old’s suicide, his family found a mission — helping save others
This is the perfect day.
The thought danced in Kymberlyrenee Gamboa’s head as she drove from her home in Fair Oaks to her two jobs at United Parcel Service and the Sacramento Area Sewer District, as she scrolled through photos of her two sons over lunch with a co-worker, and as she met her husband, Manuel Jr., just after 3 p.m. in the driveway back home. Their work schedules never synchronized like this.
“Everything seems so perfect,” Kymberlyrenee told him. “Doesn’t it?”
A warm breeze filtered through the windows. It was Friday, which meant the younger of their sons, Kyle, had soccer practice that evening. She had texted the 18-year-old a reminder, but he never responded. His mesh backpack and blue
lunchbox remained on the fireplace hearth in the kitchen, which seemed odd.
Maybe he forgot them, she thought.
But that was before the knocking began, the sharp crack of knuckles on wood echoing through the suburban Sacramento County home. Two female chaplains, one short and one tall, waited on the other side of the screen door as Kymberlyrenee answered.
“We have something to tell you about Kyle Gamboa,” one of them said. “Can we come inside?”
The morning of Sept. 20, 2013, had dawned a fierce summer blue.
Kyle woke up around 7:30 a.m. and logged on to his computer, like he did most mornings. His senior year at Sacramento Waldorf School in Fair Oaks was just beginning, and there was so much to look forward to. He was captain of the basketball team, an athlete who could pick up any sport with ease. He had applied for a passport to compete in a laser tag tournament in Australia. He hoped to visit New York City after graduation and see the glittering of Times Square at night.
Outgoing and social, Kyle loved the spotlight. He once urged the boys on the track team to wear tiny pink shorts at a meet, and they did — his confidence was that infectious. To friends and family, he had an obvious zest for life. There was none of the darkness that sometimes shadowed his brother. Manuel III, who was two years older, had struggled with depression, and often teased Kyle by calling him “the successful one.”
At 7:54 a.m., Kyle scrolled through a friend’s Facebook page, then clicked on a funny YouTube video. Minutes later, he searched “Golden Gate Bridge” on Google. The first hit was a six-minute YouTube video about suicide on the bridge set to a Coldplay song. Kyle refreshed the link five times. At 8:55 a.m., he clicked out of the internet browser and climbed into his white Toyota Tacoma pickup, leaving his backpack and lunchbox behind.
He drove southwest, past Sacramento and across six county lines, stopping at a McDonald’s for an orange juice and Egg McMuffin with bacon. Just after 11 a.m., he drove south across the Golden Gate Bridge. “Maneater” by Hall & Oates played on his iPhone.
Once he reached San Francisco, Kyle turned the truck around and drove back onto the bridge. This time, he flicked on his hazard lights, parked in one of the northbound lanes, blocking traffic, and hopped out. Near light pole 77, he climbed over the railing separating vehicles from pedestrians, crossed the walkway and leaned over the side of the bridge. The water shimmered below, green and rippling. It took maybe 10 seconds, witnesses said.
“Yahoo!” Kyle yelled, and then jumped.
At around 11:45 a.m., Kyle plummeted 200 feet into the bay, crashing into the water near a couple aboard a sailboat. By 12:08 p.m., officials had pronounced him dead.
Blunt impact injuries and drowning, the Marin County coroner would later confirm. Kyle hit the water at about 75 mph, so hard that his heart, liver and lungs essentially exploded on impact, the coroner said.
Four hours later, the chaplains knocked on the Gamboas’ front door. Kymberlyrenee sobbed as she ushered the women into her living room.
This must be a misunderstanding, she thought.
This was Kyle’s senior year. He was at soccer practice, kicking a ball under the late September sky. Or maybe he’d forgotten about soccer, despite her text reminder, and was playing a game at Lasertag of Carmichael with friends.
Shock coated her pain, and she let the truth of her son’s death depart with the chaplains. For weeks, she told herself it wasn’t real. Sometimes she even forgot Kyle was gone, her denial buoying her through the phone calls with the funeral parlor, the three-day wake in their home, the trip to Montana to bury him in the family plot near the Beaverhead Mountains, and the long afternoons on leave from work.
Why am I at home? I should be at UPS, she’d find herself thinking. Comprehension set in slowly.
Kymberlyrenee scoured every official report for details of that once-perfect Friday: how the couple sailing on the bay thought Kyle’s splash was a sea lion sluicing through the water until his body surfaced. How they lassoed the teenager with rope so the tide wouldn’t drag him out to sea. How police officers found Kyle’s iPhone, keys and wallet containing $38 in his truck.
The plastic glass of orange juice he had been drinking was in the cup holder. On the passenger seat, Kyle left a handwritten note:
I think this is a good place to end it. I’m sorry for the pain this might give you, but please be happy knowing this is what I want. The world isn’t ready for Kyle Gamboa.
Grief, anger and regret crippled Kymberlyrenee, creating a chasm her husband and surviving son couldn’t cross. She searched Kyle’s bedroom and internet history for clues, reread his suicide note until the words lost meaning. She researched the history of the Golden Gate Bridge, whose famed silhouette haunted her from posters, car commercials and the back of her driver’s license.
She learned that her son’s death was a data point in a national crisis: Suicides in the U.S. rose by 33 percent from 1999 to 2017. For people under 35, it trails only “unintentional injury” as the leading cause of death. On an average day, 129 people across the country take their own lives, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
One day, she discovered something that felt both unexpected and urgent: The 19member board appointed to run the bridge was discussing a controversial proposal to build an anti-suicide net under the bridge deck. The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District had a design but no funding. Kymberlyrenee had an engineering degree —
and had worked in construction management for Sacramento County for 16 years — so she knew about the impact of public comment on government officials.
On Nov. 15, 2013, exactly 54 days after Kyle’s death, his parents and brother made the two-hour drive to San Francisco, crossing the bridge in silence and parking at the toll plaza to attend the bridge board meeting and speak for three minutes each.
“If a suicide barrier was in place on the Golden Gate Bridge, our son, Kyle, would still be alive today,” Kymberlyrenee told the board, holding a framed portrait of her son. “Each day that goes by without a suicide barrier is one more day a life may be lost to suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge.”
We aren’t going away, she promised, until one goes up.
Since its 1937 opening, the Golden Gate Bridge has been far more than a passage for commuters. People come to walk or bike the 1.7-mile span, to snap photos of its soaring towers and Art Deco details — and to leap over the 4-foot railing to their death. The first suicide was reported three months after the span opened.
To date, more than 1,700 people are known to have killed themselves by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, including at least 27 in 2018. It is the second most popular suicide destination in the world, behind China’s Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, and one of the only major landmarks without a protective barrier.
Some deaths from the bridge are unconfirmed, because victims vanish at sea. Their bodies are often found much later, marked with shark bites. Other attempts are averted. Foot, bike and car patrols saved 187 lives last year. Still, on average, one person every 13 days dies leaping from the bridge.
The idea of a suicide net dates to the 1950s, but officials could never reach consensus on whether to build one or how it should be done. Too expensive, some critics said, or too ugly. A net won’t help anyway, they argued, because a suicidal person will find another way — though research has proved that untrue.
Some who survived the fall, like net advocate Kevin Hines, said they regretted jumping as soon as their hands left the railing. Suicide is often an impulsive decision, a 2001 study found, with 70 percent of people committing the act within an hour of the decision. Another study looked at 515 people who were prevented from leaping from the bridge from 1937 to 1971. Researchers found that 94 percent were still alive more than a quarter-century later.
Nonetheless, the fight for a net ran into a misperception: that suicide was somehow a choice rather than a treatable mental health issue.
“I’ve been retired eight years now, and I still have moments where I get incredibly angry that the mental health world hasn’t treated this like it should,” said former Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes, whose office handled the bodies of jumpers. “When you take away easy access to lethal needs, it’s a great deterrent for people in a crisis who are looking for an immediate answer.”
The debate raged for decades, until the composition of the board shifted. In 2008, the district approved a suicide net, with only one vote in opposition. But there was no funding.
This was where things still stood when the Gamboas attended their first meeting. The most powerful voices for a barrier had belonged to people like them, people intent on channeling their pain and confusion into a tangible act. Over the years, many family members had held their own framed photos in front of the board. But the Gamboas’ zealousness was unique.
“There were a number of families that came more than once,” said David Hull, 75, who in 2006 began the Bridge Rail Foundation, a nonprofit advocate for building a suicide barrier. “But one of them declared that they were going to come every time until the net was up.”
Finally, in 2014, a new measure hit board members’ desks — this time to fund the net.
Maybe Kyle thought he was going to live.
This thought comforts Kymberlyrenee at times when little else does. Her son was a daredevil, always pushing boundaries. Maybe this was a stunt — or maybe it wasn’t. She suspects Kyle suffered from bipolar disorder, his jump the culmination of his first episode of delusional mania.
She had tried to be a good mother, checking in often with both of her sons, asking: “How are things going?” and “How can I help you?” and “How could we do better as parents?” They were a close family, and after Manuel Jr.’s liver transplant in 2005 had grown closer still. She trusted that her sons were truthful. Kyle always said things were fine, and she believed him.
Sometimes Kymberlyrenee dreamed of floating in the water with Kyle, submerged in cold darkness, until flames sparked on the surface, casting everything in light. She couldn’t decode the vision. Grief washed over her while she folded the laundry that was now devoid of Kyle’s socks and sports jerseys. It struck her at the grocery store when she noticed that her cart was lighter.
“You find yourself questioning, what is the purpose of life?” she said. “You’re trying to provide every opportunity for your child so they can succeed and build the best life. You think you’ve done everything you possibly can, and this still happens.”
She often thought about the evening before the seemingly perfect day, rubbing it raw in her memory. Kyle finishing a homework assignment on the computer and asking his older brother for help. He was bathed in the monitor’s blue light as she peeked around the door frame to say goodnight.
Why would Kyle finish an assignment if he knew he was going to die?
Kymberlyrenee isn’t a religious woman, but after her son died, she read books about the afterlife and reincarnation. She created a small shrine in the
living room, displaying drawings from Kyle’s classmates, his basketball jersey and the McDonald’s cup. Pairs of Kyle’s shoes remained heaped by the front door: hiking boots and soccer cleats, Airwalks, Adidas and Converse.
And on the fourth Friday of every month, she and Manuel Jr. skipped work, driving four hours round trip to speak at the bridge board meeting. Sometimes Manuel III, who is now 25 and studies English at San Francisco State University, came along. The Gamboas’ names appear on every copy of the board’s minutes dating to 2013. Persistent and patient, they always thanked the directors for their work, never blaming them for Kyle’s death.
Kyle’s suicide had been particularly hard to shake because they couldn’t understand why it happened. It seemed senseless. But in pressing for a net, they found focus. Maybe there was a higher purpose for Kyle’s death: ensuring that other families wouldn’t know the same pain.
“There was a collective moment where it really dawned on people that something had to be done about suicide on the bridge, and the Gamboas had a lot to do with it,” said Brian Sobel, a Sonoma County representative on the bridge board. “They never repeat themselves. They always share new memories. They beautifully humanize their loss so everyone on the board can feel what they are going through. And they continue to do so without fail. It’s their catharsis, which we get to be part of.”
Pat Madden, whose 15-yearold son, Jesse, committed suicide in 2015, has attended some board meetings. Madden said the Gamboas had “explained that this is what they decided to do — this was their work to process their son’s death. That is kind of amazing to me.”
In the months before the 2014 vote, Kymberlyrenee started an online petition in support of the net, gathering 158,000 signatures from around the world. Even as she rallied support, the questions still tormented her: Would Kyle have attended college? Would he have visited Australia and Times Square at night? Who would her son have become?
In June 2014, nine months after Kyle jumped, the historic vote finally came.
Three agencies — the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Caltrans and California’s Mental Health Services Division — had agreed to earmark money for a suicide net if the board voted to approve $20 million for the project. The room in the toll plaza administration building was packed. Families stood against the walls.
“My main thing for being here is to prevent future deaths,” Manuel Jr. said, tearing up as he held Kyle’s photo, before passing it to Kymberlyrenee.
Board member John Moylan, whose grandson had committed suicide on the bridge that month, made the motion. After the votes came in, the room erupted in cheers and applause, and the Gamboas hugged.
Later, the full $211 million for the project was cobbled together through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission ($74 million), the California Department of Transportation ($70 million), Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District revenue ($60 million) and other state funding ($7 million).
An April 2017 groundbreaking for what is formally known as the Suicide Deterrent System featured supportive words from Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Also there was Kymberlyrenee, peering from beneath her thick bangs and holding the same photo of Kyle she had carried with her for four years. She was the only family member of a suicide victim invited to speak at the dedication.
“Today belongs to the love and leadership of every family, like Kymberlyrenee’s,” Pelosi said that day. “Take great pride in your tears, your grief, your sadness. You are lifesavers.”
In August, crews began construction of the marine-grade stainless steel net. It will stretch the length of the bridge, hanging 20 feet below the public walkway. Officials estimate it will be finished by January 2021. The Gamboas plan to continue making the drive to San Francisco and trying to broaden support for the net. When the construction is complete, they say, they might stop.
“When the net is completely done, we can probably look at our grief and what’s left of it,” Kymberlyrenee said. “Do we want to channel it into something else? Or are we OK with just dealing with what is left? We have put a lot of ourselves into this project. For us, we are still in the middle of it.”
It’s late September, and the Gamboas drive to the Golden Gate Bridge.
The water is white-capped and roiling, dotted with sailboats. A cold breeze cuts the warmth. As Kymberlyrenee, her husband and her son walk to light pole 77, the pavement shudders from the weight of passing cars. Kymberlyrenee carries 10 red roses in her backpack. She hides the bouquet, though — police confiscate anything that can be thrown over the railing. Wind blows her long brown hair, knotting it.
Tourists pass on bikes, ringing the handlebar bells and speaking a dozen different languages. Shorebirds swoop through the air. The Oakland hills are obscured by a layer of marine fog. Beneath the bridge, heavy equipment is staged. Each night, crews shut down lanes of traffic on the bridge and build the net, piece by piece. By day, their progress is invisible.
What did Kyle see here, five years ago?
The Gamboas always make this journey on the anniversary of Kyle’s death. He would have turned 24 this year. But next September, they might commemorate it in Sacramento. Manuel Jr. doesn’t want to live in the pall of loss forever.
Kymberlyrenee holds her phone, waiting for the digital display to flick to the time they believe Kyle jumped. Her husband peels some petals off his rose. The clock glows: 11:45 a.m. They drop the flowers, leaning over the railing to watch them disappear.
For a few seconds, the roses float on the breeze.
Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn