A brave man has opened up about the moment he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and 'instantly regretted it'.
Kevin Hines was in a deep state of despair when he leapt off the 4ft rail bridge in San Fransisco, California.
The then 19-year-old was seen pacing the walkway for almost 40 minutes before giving into the voices in his head telling him to jump.
He is one of just 36 people to survive the fall, escaping with a crushed spinal vertebrae and broken ankle.
Mr Hines plummeted the equivalent of 25 stories at a speed of 80 miles per hour.
But he said the millisecond his hands left the rail, "it was instant regret".
He managed to manoeuvre his body as he fell through the air to ensure he hit the water feet-first.
"I kept thinking, this is not real, I am not in this water, I did not just jump off this bridge, this did not just happen," he told DailyMail.com.
He then started to pray and said "God please save me, I don't want to die".
There have been 1,800 suicide deaths since the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, according to the Bridge Rail Foundation which works to end suicides on the crossing.
Mr Hines, 41, is now a mental health advocate and motivational speaker who shares his story with others around the world.
At school, he was a championship wrestler and played on the football team.
But he began struggling with his mental health and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 17.
Mr Hines thought about taking his own life twice in 1999 but was deterred after reading part of Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's biography and a message by the late rapper DMX AKA Earl Simmons.
In September 2020, he travelled to the Golden Gate to try again.
He recalled "crying his eyes out" while taking a bus filled with "at least 100 people" all the while hoping that someone would stop him.
But nobody said anything, leaving him "overwhelmed" and in despair of his depression, he said.
The teenager was battling manic depression with hallucinations, paranoid delusions, visual panic attacks and more, all culminating into one day.
He told of a woman approaching him on the bridge but it turned out she just wanted her photograph taken.
After she walked away, he jumped and another woman alerted the US Coast Guard.
As he started to drown, he said a sea lion helped him stay afloat by circling beneath him and bumping him up until the Coast Guard arrived.
He was then rushed to a nearby hospital in excruciating pain, a nurse said.
Miraculously, although Mr Hines suffered a serous spinal injury, he did not sever his spinal cord and he survived without any serious brain injury party due to how he hit the water.
Trauma experts said his condition was the best case scenario and his physical injuries eventually healed.
