Kevin Hines, Suicide Prevention Advocate

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, which is free and open to the public, 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.

Hines’ incredible story of survival and a strong will to live 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.