Author and speaker Kevin Hines moved the audience at the Greater Binghamton Health Center Tuesday night to tears through his inspirational story, but he wouldn't have had that opportunity if his suicide attempt in 2000 had been successful.

"Just because you're in pain today doesn't mean you'll live that pain for the rest of tomorrow and that's what I had to learn the hard way by attempting to take my own life," said Hines.

After struggling through a lifelong battle of bipolar disorder and depression, at the age of 19 he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in a final attempt to put an end to that pain.

But it didn't work.

"The millisecond I catapulted myself into a free fall was an instant regret," he said.

"I knew I'd made the greatest mistake of my life and I thought it was too late."

Fortunately for Hines, it wasn't too late.

He survived the fall with non-life threatening injuries and uses the experience to encourage people today to get help if they're suffering, and to choose to live.

"Tell the truth to someone who you know loves you because you are not a burden, you are not less than, you don't deserve to die and your death will not make it easier on anybody else," he said.