Jumping to Death

I give the Press Democrat credit for an interesting interview published on Sunday. Jeramie Taylor and Giovanni Amador interviewed Otter Villagomez, a lad who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge while on a field trip with his high school class about two years ago. "When we got to the beginning of the bridge, it was like, you know, that it would be cool to jump off the bridge," Villagomez explained.  The fall "felt like forever, even though it was like six or seven seconds. You jump and are just floating there for a second looking at the horizon. Halfway down you just start going faster." Villagomez was saved from drowning by an annoyed dude on a surfboard. The jumper had some broken bones and a punctured lung, but today he is among the 2% who have survived the big leap. He's also grown wiser, and his advice is, "Don't even try it." Here's the thing--we were all teenagers once, and if we survived we learned not to do moronic things or--if we learned nothing--we can run for congress in a red district.