Men Of Steel
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If the telephone rings at 3am
You know it's trouble
Your stuff is always ready
You're out the door in minutes
You know someone is threatening
To jump off your bridge

Men of steel they're called
Men of steel they're called
Rivet wrestlers
Cowboys in the sky...

We're the only ones
Dumb enough to do it,
In fact we're the only ones
With enough equipment,
Knowledge of the bridge,
And courage to go over the rail

Men of steel they're called
Men of steel they're called
Rivet wrestlers
Cowboys in the sky...

(Raga)
If you're an iron worker on the Golden Gate Bridge and the telephone rings at 3am, you know it's trouble. You know someone is threatening to jump off your bridge. Your stuff is always ready; you're out the door in minutes.

If you aren't too late, you climb out onto the cold steel and try to talk some lost soul off the beam or wrestle him or her to safety.

Many suicide attempts are impulsive; lives can be salvaged. But if you fail, if the person jumps into that bottomless fog, "there's no describing how helpless you feel," says Ken Hopper, a Golden Gate Bridge iron-worker for 17 years.

Men of called, they're called. They fix and maintain the world's most amazing tinker-toy. But, what qualifies these rivet-wrestlers to perform the delicate psychological task of suicide prevention? "We're the only ones dumb enough to do it," says Hopper, a bear of a guy with a bushy mustache and a sensitive side. In fact, they're the only ones with enough equipment, knowledge of the bridge, and courage to go over the rail.

Suicide rescue duty is voluntarily, but the bridge's iron-workers all take their turns. Sometimes a police psychologist will be at the scene, more often the rescuers are on their own.

"Suicide prevention experts have come to give us seminars," Hopper says. "They talk to these people on the phone. We deal with them face to face."

Often a would-be jumper is locked in a private mental zone and the trick is to get his or her attention. Some tricks that have worked:
"Hey, if you're going to jump, at least give me your mom's phone number so i can call her to tell her.";
"That's a nice watch, if you're going to jump, can i have it?"

Sometimes all it takes is the voice of a human who cares:
"Look, I've been through some hard times myself. I know it's possible to get help."

Hopper estimates he's rescued about 30 people, and lost three. The losses haunt him. Hopper once talked down an 18 year old college student. The next morning, while at a press conference to announce a new bridge suicide prevention program, the same teenager walked back onto the bridge and jumped.

Another time, Hopper arrived at a rescue just in time to see a man fling his two year old daugher off the bridge, and then jump, himself.

"Once in a great while," Hopper says, "one of the guys will get a note from someone they talked down. It's a treasure; it's like gold." Usually there's no follow-up, no closure. Hopper says that's a sore spot; you help save a life, he says, you become involved in that life.

A few years ago, it all got to be too much for Hopper. He had his name removed from the rescue call list and underwent therapy. As soon as he felt like he had a handle on things again, he put his name back on the list.
"It got to the point, it was more difficult NOT to do it."