Even when the cooling fog blunts the view, the vast majority of jumpers take their last step facing east instead of west toward the Pacific.
People jump and kill themselves there, an average of 19 a year. In the peak year, 1977, there were 40 suicides.
Once a person dives, depending on where he or she jumps, the body plummets 240 to 250 feet in four seconds, traveling about 75 mph, and hits the water with the force of a speeding truck meeting a concrete building. Some die instantly from extensive internal injuries; others drown in their own blood.
The jump is fatal 98 percent of the time. The Chronicle's research indicates that at least 1,218 suicides were reported between the time the bridge opened, on May 27, 1937, and this past Friday.
