Golden Gate Bridge's 'guardian angel' cop has saved 200 lives

It was March 11, 2005, and Kevin Berthia was desperate.

His infant daughter was sick and the 22-year-old father had racked up nearly $250,000 in medical bills that he was struggling to repay. 

He told his family and friends he would not be coming home and walked out onto the Golden Gate Bridge with every intention of taking his own life. 

Then he climbed over the barrier near the North Tower and stood on a narrow pipe, with a petrifying 245-foot drop into the freezing San Francisco Bay looming below.

It was here that California Highway Patrol Officer, Kevin Briggs, found him shortly after 4pm and began attempting to coax him back over the ledge.

Unbeknownst to them both, this harrowing moment was captured on camera, with Berthia seen hanging his head while holding onto the railing with just one hand.

Speaking with DailyMail.com, Briggs - who is now affectionately known as the Guardian of Golden Gate Bridge and credited with saving more than 200 lives - reveals the incredible story behind this now iconic photograph.

The 61-year-old Sonoma County resident is no stranger to a hard-won battle as he used to work as San Quentin prison guard and is an Army veteran, but some of his biggest challenges involved expertly convincing people like Berthia to believe in hope again. 

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With his daughter's medical debt up to his eyeballs, Berthia had a lot of reasons to continue with his plan - despite his family's worries and the chance of his child growing up without a father.

But in reality, he just needed someone to listen to him. 

'I introduced myself as just Kevin and asked if it was okay to walk up to him,' Briggs told DailyMail.com during Suicide Awareness Month. 'I stayed back about 15 feet and asked his permission to approach. I wanted to get his permission and empower him.

'He was very angry and at first, wanted nothing to do with me.' 

After about 10 minutes or so, Berthia allowed the officer to approach him, and as their 90-minute conversation continued, Briggs would inch closer and closer until he was 'more comfortable with me and allowed me to walk up to the rail' - a moment captured by photographer John Storey. 

'I kept telling him [Berthia] I was not going to grab him, I was only there to talk to him,' Briggs, who actively patrolled the bridge from 1994 to 2004 and on-and-off until 2013, told DailyMail.com. The former cop makes a point of never grabbing the people he saves.

Briggs watched as the desperate man 'teared up' as he spoke about his infant daughter and said the emotional moment was a 'turning point' as he had 'developed enough rapport that he felt comfortable in letting his emotions show.'

Although it's hard to tell if someone will climb back over the rail or jump, Briggs 'thought things were starting to go a lot better' once Berthia began to open up. 

'I focused on his daughter, that he needed to be there for her, and the times they would miss together if he was gone,' the Army veteran said, as he looked for a hook during every encounter. 

'After Berthia came over the rail, I shook his hand and congratulated him. We stood there a bit and let him calm down.' 

Afterward, the 22-year-old was transported to San Francisco General Hospital for a checkup. They now do speeches together where they talk about their incredible story. 

The veteran realized throughout his multiple attempts of convincing people to climb back over the rail that he needed a 'hook' to do the job, and for Berthia, it was his daughter. 

Like all his cases on the bridge, Briggs' number one rule is to 'listen more than you speak,' and he's not against using personal experiences to connect with people on a deeper level. 

'I've had a lot of things go on in my life with my own mental health, with cancer and heart surgeries, and some brain trauma, and some very severe abuse by a neighbor when I was very, very young,' Briggs said. 

'Even in my own family, three suicides, and my own son, who was suicidal and engaging in non-suicidal self-injury. So I bring all of this out to show folks it's okay to talk about it.' 

The former officer believes pulling in his past has been effective while helping others as it allows the suicidal person to realize they're not alone and that he does understand their struggles. 

Briggs has battled testicular cancer at the age of 20 while serving in the Army in Germany, sexual abuse by a neighbor when he was young, and three heart surgeries, among other personal and family tragedies. 

He admits having to overcome his own obstacles 'royally sucked,' but he 'had to 'go through things to learn and to see.' 

'If somebody's over the rail and say: "You know what it's like to have cancer?" Well, I did and it sucked, and I have some big surgeries because of it, and big scars because of it. We have to go through that chemotherapy, and I was lucky to be alive.'

'The look in peoples' faces when they would come back over the rail ... It takes so much courage to go over that rail in the beginning. Imagine the courage that it takes to come back over that rail and face everything again,' Briggs told DailyMail.com. 

When Briggs joined CHP in 1990 and eventually started patrolling the bridge, he was never offered any formal training to deal with crisis situations like this, despite the Golden Gate Bridge being the number one suicide spot in the world.   

The father-of-two - who now teaches FBI and Secret Service agents - was forced to learn on the job, as he did with his first suicidal encounter when he was called to the bridge after a report of a young woman threatening to make 25-story jump. 

'The first one was a young lady [who was standing] over the pedestrian rail, standing on this I-beam we call the cord. And I walked up to her, in my mind I was like: "What are you doing? You can get hurt," [that] kind of thing, not really thinking she was suicidal.'

He recalled the woman had previously struggled with drugs and was 'just going through a very, very rough time in her life'.

'I really didn't know what to say, and I thought: "You know, what if she jumps? Am I responsible? Am I getting in trouble for this?" But I was really worried about her, I kind of just stumbled through it.' 

Following the encounter, the Bay Area native began researching crisis negotiation on his own time and asked other senior officers if they had experienced similar events. 

Despite his heroic acts, Briggs doesn't consider himself a savior. 

'You don't see me using the word saved, I don't use the word saved. I didn't save anybody. I spoke to folks in a dark time in their life,' he told DailyMail.com. 'It wasn't like I rushed into a burning building and pulled them out or something. I was relatively safe.' 

However, not every encounter was successful, and he did watch people plummet to their deaths. 

'It's never easy doing this type of work,' Briggs told DailyMail.com. 

One man shook Brigg's hand three times before jumping because he said he wanted to be reunited with his grandmother. The officer had to watch his body fall so he could tell on-the-ground guys which direction it went so it could be recovered. 

Another man, 32-year-old Jason Garber, of New Jersey, asked Briggs if he knew the story of Pandora's Box, a tale about troubles and hope, after an hour of conversation. 

The officer did know the story and Garber worried that if he opened his box he wouldn't find any hope left in it. 

After telling Briggs that, he jumped - a death that hit the officer hard. 

It was the only two people he ever lost that he spoke with directly while working on the bridge. 

He also worked on one of the famous Golden Gate cases: Kevin Hines. 

Hines jumped from the bridge and plunged into the water going 80mph and survived to tell the tale. 

Although Briggs didn't have to try and talk Hines off the ledge, he did 'handle his case' and met the man at the hospital to get a statement and speak with his father. 

'His father told him: "Just reach out and shake the officer's hand," and he did do that,' Briggs told DailyMail.com. 

Hines and Berthia are the only survivors that Briggs still keeps in contact with. 

He hasn't attempted to reach out to the others over fears it would bring back fresh memories of a negative part of their lives.  

Almost 2,000 people have jumped to their deaths on the Golden Gate Bridge since it opened in 1937, with an average of around 30 deaths per year. Briggs responded to four to six calls per month throughout his time patrolling the area until his retirement in 2013.  

A suicide barrier has since been constructed along the 1.7-mile bridge and was completed in January 2024, covering 95 percent of the structure and curbing deaths by half, bridge officials said. 

However, the net - which is located 20 feet below the sidewalks - is not meant to be an easy fall and those attempting suicide can still suffer significant injuries. Professional rescue teams are needed to pull one out of the net. 

Despite the good that has come from it so far, Briggs admitted to DailyMail.com that he was 'not an advocate of the net for a very, very long time.' 

'I thought it would really block the view,' he said. 'And the vast majority, you know, hundreds of thousands of people cross this bridge throughout the year from all over the world, and I didn't want to block that view.

'But then again, I never lost a family member on that bridge.' 

It wasn't until he had a conversation with a father whose daughter had died at the bridge after he retired from CHP - where he spent 23 years of his career and 17 of those patrolling the bridge - that he changed his mind. 

'He was asking me about the suicide barrier that was not up yet and my view. And I told him,' Briggs said. 'And I thought: "Oh man, this guy's going to rear back and hit me!" He lost his kid on this bridge, but he didn't [hit me].' 

Instead, the man raised his hands like 'two cups' and told Briggs: 'I want you to think of it like this: A view or a life?' 

'He just swayed me right there. I felt like an idiot,' he told DailyMail.com.  

Since his CHP days, he has gone on to start Pivotal Points, an organization that helps with crisis management, suicide prevention, and leadership skills. 

If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts or actions, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 988. 

Kevin Brigg's guide to crisis negotiation  

Kevin Briggs now spends his time teaching others, like those in the FBI and Secret Service, how to engage in crisis negotiations. 

He spent years patrolling the Golden Gate Bridge and learned on the job how to negotiate with a suicidal person to choose life instead of death. 

While speaking to DailyMail.com, he gave his top tips on how to expertly negotiate during a crisis. 

1. Listen more than you speak 

'Listen to try and understand what is really trying to come through by that individual,' he said. 'Try to find out what their past is.' 

2. Don't have an ego 

'Let's just say egos don't go well in negotiations,' he said. 'So, when I'm teaching negotiators or future negotiators, I would tell them, if you have a big ego, you are not going to do well.' 

3. Have empathy

Briggs often spent his time listening to people he encountered on the bridge and learning their stories. 

He advises to 'have empathy' and use one's own similar stories to help others realize they're not alone. 

'It's really just to be there and try to understand, and even to humanize this [situation],' he said. 

'Anyone going through this stuff may be thinking about suicide or probably would be thinking about suicide. This is normal [to think that in this situation], you know, [it's] not quite so normal going over the bridge and over the rail.' 

He would tell some of his potential jumpers that 'this is a normal thought,' but follow up with: 'Let's see if we can get you some help.' 

Briggs said negotiators jobs are to 'get them past this crisis.'  

4. Take care of yourself

He wants negotiators to ask themselves: 'If I don't take care of myself [to] come back and do this job, then who is?' 

Briggs said it takes a 'special person' to do this type of work and if that person isn't up to par with their self-care, then there's no one there to do the job when it's needed.