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Kevin Hines experienced his first psychotic break while acting in a high school production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

He looked out at the 1,200-person audience and suddenly felt that they were all there to kill him.

Years later, at the age of 19, Hines succumbed to the voices in his head and threw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Of the nearly 2,000 people who have made the same jump, he is one of only 36 to have survived it.

Hines told his story to a room full of Virginia health care professionals and experts as the keynote speaker at the first Virginia Behavioral Health Summit organized by the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. The conference, which was held to discuss practice and policy for preventing and treating mental health and substance abuse disorders, was held in Richmond on Thursday.

Hines’ humor-laced narrative of hope set an uplifting tone for the state’s first gathering of its kind to focus on an aspect of health care that has been deemed a public health crisis by Gov. Ralph Northam.