Lander University Hosts Kevin Hines, Suicide Prevention Advocate, to Speak at Lander

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Here4AReason and Lander University invite the Greenwood and Lander communities to attend a talk on Tuesday, Aug. 26, by Kevin Hines, an award-winning global speaker and suicide prevention and mental health advocate. The program is free and open to the public and will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Lander’s Abney Cultural Center Auditorium. It is sponsored by Lander’s Wellness Center and Office of the Dean of Students.

Kevin Hines, Suicide Prevention Advocate, will speak August 26th at Lander and share his incredible story of survival and a strong will to live which began in September 2000 when he attempted suicide by leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Diagnosed two years earlier with bipolar disorder, Hines was paranoid and hallucinating when he jumped. His fall, 220 feet into the San Francisco Bay, shattered several vertebrae and lacerated most of his lower organs.

Hines and witnesses at the scene say a sea lion nudged him and helped keep him afloat until the Coast Guard pulled him from the frigid waters. He was taken to Marin General Hospital where an experimental surgery saved his life. Hines healed with almost no physical evidence from the fall on his body, except for a few scars. Of the thousands who have attempted suicide from the bridge since it opened in 1937, fewer than 1 percent have survived.

Hines’ bestselling memoir, titled Cracked not Broken, Surviving and Thriving after a Suicide Attempt, was published in 2013, and thousands of people have told him that his story helped save their lives. His story reached an even wider audience in 2018 when Hines produced and directed the award-winning film, Suicide the Ripple Effect, which was named Best Story that year at the Nice International Film Festival. Among his numerous honors, Hines was named among the CNN Champions of Change in 2019 and has earned recognition from the National Council of Behavioral Health, the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.