An emotional reunion occurred recently when a U.K. man was able to track down the stranger who helped him at a dark time in his life. The U.K. man had been having suicidal thoughts and was about to jump off of the Waterloo Bridge in London.  He had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and was concerned that recovery would be difficult.  When standing on the end of the bridge, however, he heard a man’s voice behind him.  The man asked him to go for coffee and talk.

The simple invitation made all the difference, and the U.K. man now describes his life as wonderful six years later. He began a campaign to find the man who saved his life, and the two met up recently.  The wonderful story shows that sometimes it takes just one person to reach out and prevent a death by suicide. Unfortunately, people experiencing suicidal thoughts hide them from those closest to them and never get the help they need. Recognizing signs of suicidal thoughts can be difficult for family members and friends, although mental health professionals should be trained to identify red flags; most aren’t.

Two-Thirds of those in America who contemplate suicide are not under the care of a mental health clinician.  The goal is to get all folks needing mental health into competent care.  Competent care is the challenge.  Graduate and some medical schools are not properly training their students on managing and accessing patients at risk for suicide.  Licensing agencies are not properly testing new clinicians on treating suicidal patients.  Consequently unless the clinician learns by self-study how to manage their patients or the employers of the clinicians insure proper training has occurred, the at risk patient will not receive the care he or she needs.

Those who lose loved ones due to death by suicide may be able to take action against mental health counselors who failed to provide the necessary help or to take action to stop a death by suicide.  Contact a suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson to speak with a lawyer who can help.

Reaching out to Prevent Death by Suicide

As the Huffington Post reports,  the man standing on the edge of the Waterloo Bridge in London had been unable to tell his friends or his family members about his intentions. He describes being afraid of his suicidal thoughts and feelings and being unable to vocalize them to anyone.

When the total stranger came up behind him on the bridge, however, the kindness made an impact.  Instead of jumping, the man turned around to see his face and hear the simple message that things could get better.

The good Samaritan listened to his explanation of how he was feeling, and eventually this was enough to get him to step back off the ledge and agree to go for coffee. Police took him into custody once off the bridge, put him into an ambulance headed for Saint Thomas Hospital.  He never got to say goodbye to the good Samaritan or to thank him, until he found him on the Internet and they were able to reunite.

The happy ending in this story will hopefully help to inspire others to get involved and offer help even to strangers who are struggling. Perhaps the story could also make a difference in the lives of someone with suicidal thoughts.  Like the man in this story, many people with suicidal thoughts cannot or will not tell their closest family members. The important thing is that someone, even a stranger, notices and listens.

How can family members learn what suicidal risk factors to look for in their loved ones?   The book “The Suicide Lawyers: Exposing Lethal Secrets” by CC Risenhoover is the perfect choice. Risenhoover interviews Skip Simpson who outlines his experiences in years of teaching and litigating about suicidal patients.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can take action against mental health providers. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a consultation.

Military veterans are at great risk for suicide after leaving the service. USA Today recently reported on disturbing data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which shows that young veterans are dying by suicide at a rate of more than double the number of civilians who lose their lives this way.

While this news is not good and VA officials indicate that the “data show[s] that severe personal issues driving self-destructive tendencies for those in uniform follow them when they leave the military,” the data also shows that social media outreach and mental health treatment can help to reduce this high rate of deaths by suicide. An experienced suicide attorney knows that competent mental health professionals play an important role in recognizing signs of suicide and in preventing these deaths by providing appropriate care and, if necessary, arranging supervision of those who are at risk.

Skip Simpson, a 20 year veteran, says it is extremely important for service personnel and veterans to know the country is solidly behind them in making sure they are receiving competent and timely mental health care.

High Rates of Suicide are Disturbing

According to the VA data, young veterans out of service are dying by suicide at nearly three-times the rate of troops on active duty. Individuals in the Army are at greater risk than troops in other service branches, and have been both during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as when returning to civilian life.

The data shows an alarming discrepancy when comparing military veterans with civilians.

• For example, veterans ages 18-24 who are enrolled in health programs with the VA died by suicide at a rate of 46 per 100,000 in 2009 and at a rate of almost 80 per 100,000 in 2011.
• When this age group is broadened to include individuals aged 18 to 29, the rate of vets who died by suicide increased from 88 deaths in 2009 to 152 deaths in 2011.
• Non-veterans ages 18-24 died by suicide at a rate of just 20 per 100,000 in 2009 and 2010 as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• In 2009, a total of 36 young veterans who were receiving some type of health assistance from the VA died by suicide in 2009.  In 2011, 65 died by suicide.
• The overall suicide rate for active-duty army personnel was around 22 per 100,000 from 2009 to 2011.
• Soldier suicides reached the highest number in 2012, with 185 deaths by suicide.  This was a record of 30 deaths per 100,000, which is the highest it has ever been for the Army.

A preliminary review of information about those who died by suicide suggests that most of the people who lost their lives were not receiving mental health assistance although they had been treated for other medical problems by the Veterans Administration. However, the data also indicates that there has been a dramatic increase in calls to the suicide prevention office, which received several hundred calls in 2009 but received almost 55,000 in 2013. This seems to show that more people are beginning to reach out for the help they need.

If proper mental health services are provided to those who are experiencing suicidal thoughts, hopefully the number of veterans who die by suicide could be significantly reduced.

Contact the Law Offices of Skip Simpson in Dallas, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

Death by suicide is one of the leading causes of fatalities among people of all ages, but young people are an especially high-risk group. Unfortunately, suicide hotlines designed to prevent death by suicide by helping those with suicidal thoughts may not be reaching young people or providing adequate support to teens because these hotlines are based on phone technologies that could be considered antiquated.

Recognizing hotlines may not be working well for younger individuals, some suicide prevention and outreach groups have added “texting” hotlines. ABC Action News reports that the latest of such programs is starting in San Francisco, and that the father of a victim who died by suicide is leading the charge to increase the availability of counseling via text. The father is driven by the belief that such a program might have saved the life of his 17-year-old son, who tried to reach out to his therapist via text in the middle of the night. The therapist didn’t get the text until the teen had died by suicide.

While mental health professionals must be alert to the signs of suicide and a suicide lawyer in Dallas can assist individuals in taking action against a therapist that failed to live up to its obligations, therapists cannot always be available via phone or text 24-7. Hotlines help, and should reach many people as possible.

Texting Hotlines Could Help to Save Lives

Suicide hotlines provide an important outlet for individuals experiencing suicidal thoughts and who either do not have or cannot get in touch with their own therapist. For teens, however, texting generally surpasses all other modes of communication, with teenagers turning to texting even for serious issues like breaking up relationships.

Teens accustomed to electronic communication are more likely to reach out via text when experiencing suicidal thoughts, which helps to explain why all students who were part of a San Francisco suicide prevention focus group expressed support for adding a text-based service to existing types of suicide prevention help available. A quarter of the teens in the focus group also said they’d prefer to reach out via text, rather than phone, if they were experiencing a crisis. Another 25 percent said their preferred communication method would be chat, while just 25 percent said they’d use a traditional phone hotline.

The texting option available to teens in San Francisco is called MyLife and gives teens a number they can use to send a text message and connect with a trained counselor. When the counselor receives a text, the counselor can alert emergency services if needed and can provide emotional support via text message.

This new texting program is not the first of its kind either. Nevada and Minnesota have also added text-based suicide prevention hotlines and Minnestoa’s TXT4LIFE hotline handled over 3,800 text sessions last year, providing assistance for 1,985 young people who needed help.

Hopefully, as texting systems grow in size and scope and spread throughout the United States, they will work as an effective tool in the fight to reduce death by suicide.

Psychiatric outpatient clinics which serve teens should seriously consider adding this service for their young patients…a great agenda item for suicide prevention.

If you lost a loved one to suicide, contact a suicide attorney in Dallas at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

According to Here and Now, September 10 was World Suicide Prevention Day. The goal of this day is to make people more aware of the warning signs of suicide and also to alert people help is available. World Suicide Prevention Day serves an important aim, as the number of people who die by suicide has reached record highs in the United States.

One reason why some individuals in the United States die by suicide is because they are vulnerable and a precipitant, like bullying, sparks suicidal behavior. Bullying Statistics.org reveals  there is a strong link between bullying and suicide and that girls ages 10-14 are at especially high risk of dying by suicide because they are being bullied. Just a few short days after World Suicide Prevention Day, one such tragic death due to bullying occurred in Florida. When a person dies by suicide and someone else’s actions may have played a role in causing that death, a suicide attorney in Dallas should be consulted for help and advice.

Ordinarily a high percentage of all suicide attempts are made by teens (and other age groups) who have a psychiatric condition like major depression, anxiety, substance dependence or some similar diagnosis. These psychiatric conditions along with a teen’s perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness add to the suicide risk vulnerability.  Perceived burdensomeness combines self-hatred and the sense one’s existence is a liability to others, and thwarted belongingness is the lack of caring relationships and frequent interpersonal interactions.  Legal advice from a lawyer competent and experienced in the field of suicide is a must.

Suicide and Bullying

The goal of World Suicide Prevention Day is to help families and loved-ones of those with suicidal thoughts to recognize the warning signs and to hopefully take action to prevent a death by suicide. Recognizing that someone is having suicidal thoughts is important, as is recognizing the risk factors, which include bullying.

The link between suicide and bullying has been well-established. According to Bullying Statistics:

• A Yale University study revealed that a victim of bullying is between two and nine times as likely to have suicidal thoughts than someone not being bullied.
• A British study revealed that at least half of all deaths by suicides among young people are related to bullying.
• ABC News statistics revealed that almost 30 percent of students are victimized by bullying or are bullying themselves.
• ABC News data also revealed that as many as 160,000 kids stay home from school daily because they are afraid of being bullied.

The bullying problem has been made much worse in a digital age because kids cannot necessarily escape their tormentors simply by staying home. The Washington Post reported on the tragic story of a 12-year-old Florida girl who died by suicide days after World Suicide Prevention Day.

The young girl was terrorized on social media, and over 15 girls repeatedly sent the victim messages asking why she was still alive and urging her to kill herself.  The 12-year-old died by suicide, jumping off of an old cement building to her death.

The Washington Post indicates police are considering filing criminal charges for cyber stalking in relation to the incident. The tragedy is an important reminder that bullying can have a real effect on a person. The victim who died by suicide in this case had searched for information about suicide online prior to her death and photographs were revealed of the girl with razor blades on her arms and her head resting on railroad tracks.

Besides the potential criminal charges, if there was negligence by school professionals or mental health counselors in getting this young victim the help she needed, surviving family members could also file a civil lawsuit for compensation. Litigation decisions must be carefully made.  School counselors and mental health counselors must be properly trained and competent to detect a teen at risk for suicide. It is their job.

If you lost a loved one to suicide, contact a suicide attorney in Dallas at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

This May, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was published. According to the Huffington Post, the DSM-5 has taken a new approach to the topic of suicide.

Our Dallas suicide attorneys know that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of suicides in recent years, making suicide an issue of serious public importance in the United States. The changes to the DSM-5 are intended to reduce this troubling trend by focusing more on suicidal behaviors and ideation as a “cross-cutting” issue of mental disorders. The new DSM-5 also introduces some new methods of both interpreting and reacting to suicidal behaviors and ideation.

DSM-5 Takes New Approach to Suicides

The new DSM-5 has changed many different aspects of how suicides are treated. For example:

• Chapters throughout the DSM-5 now identify specific factors that can make a person more likely to attempt to die by suicide.
• The risk of suicide is recognized in many different diagnoses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and anorexia. This change was made as a result of research that shows that personality or depressive disorders are not the only mental-health issues that can increase the risk of a person dying by suicide.
• A new Section III has been added to the manual providing assessment tools designed to help clinicians evaluate the mental health and suicide risk of patients both more comprehensively and more consistently. There are now 13 different psychological domains that a person should be assessed in, including suicide. This diagnostic guide helps clinicians to distinguish various forms of non-life-threatening self harm, such as cutting, from potential attempts to die by suicide.
• A new condition called suicidal behavior disorder has been added to the DSM-5 as one that deserves further study. Suicidal behavior disorder is defined as having made a suicide attempt within the prior 24-months.
• The DSM-5 defines a clear distinction between non-suicidal self-injury and self injury that occurs with the intent to die by suicide.

These changes occur at a time when 750,000 people attempt suicide each year and when 36,000 people succeed in dying by suicide. Suicide has now surpassed car accidents as the top cause of death and the suicide-death rate is more than twice the rate of people who die by homicide.

The hope is that the changes to the DSM-5 can make clinicians better able to correctly diagnose suicidal tendencies in patients suffering from a host of mental problems.

Clinicians who provide mental health treatment to patients should study the new DSM-5 carefully to ensure that they are providing the best possible care to patients and are best-equipped to help prevent death by suicide. If a clinician falls short in his obligation to provide reasonable care and a patient dies by suicide, the clinician could potentially be held legally responsible for the death in a civil lawsuit.

If you lost a loved  one to suicide, contact the Dallas Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

In 2011, a law passed requiring the Texas Department of State Health Services and Texas Education Agency to compile a list of suicide prevention programs. Now, the Dallas News reports that another law awaits approval from the governor. The new law would require school districts to train staff members to be alert for the signs of mental illness or suicidal tendencies. If staff members noticed potential problems, they would be required to notify parents or guardians that they suspected an increased suicide risk.

Our Dallas suicide lawyers know that suicide is a major problem among teens and that the more people looking out for signs of suicide, the better the chances that suicide can be prevented. Hopefully, the governor will sign the law requiring suicide prevention training among school staff members. But in the meantime some schools have already begun implementing suicide prevention programs ahead of the law’s passage in order to better protect their students.

Suicide Prevention Programs Aim to Protect Students

After the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Education Agency compiled their list of recommended suicide prevention programs, school districts in the state began adopting the programs that were suggested or began implementing their own program.

Several of these school districts, including Rockwall ISD, are located in North Texas. Unfortunately, despite these policies, two Rockwall students, including a high school freshman and an eighth grader, recently took their own lives.  These deaths, however, do not mean that the existing suicide prevention programs have not been effective at saving other teenagers.

Suicide is a major issue in Texas, with 398 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 dying by suicide in 2010.  During that same year, another 22 young people between the ages of 5 and 14 died by suicide.  This is a high number of youth suicides and even one death is a tragedy for parents and for the community at large.

Taking action to prevent further deaths and to reduce the number of kids who lose their lives is essential and teachers and school professionals who spend a lot of time with kids can provide important assistance in recognizing the signs that something is wrong.

Rep. Garnet Coleman, a sponsor of the current bill that would require staff training, has acknowledged that no program can completely prevent suicides. However, he believes that Texas cannot afford to do nothing and that services for the mentally ill need to be increased along with education about suicide and its risk factors.

Coleman wrote the current bill on staff training in 2011 and indicated that those in state government believe that the best way to attack the high suicide rate is “to have eyes – and more trained eyes.” A requirement that teachers and school staff learn about suicide prevention would provide these additional eyes and could hopefully help to reduce the number of young people who lose their lives before they even really begin.

If you lost a loved  one to suicide, contact the Dallas Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

Anti-epilepsy drugs such as Lyrica work to prevent seizures in patients who suffer from epilepsy and are also used to treat certain health conditions. Unfortunately, many anti-epileptic drugs also have an unexpected side effect: they can increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors in patients. The consequences of this side effect can be very severe, especially if patients are not monitored carefully. Tragically, some patients taking these drugs can die by suicide as a result of the effects of the medication.  

Our Dallas suicide lawyers know that some anti-epilepsy drugs may as much as double the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in patients. Because of this side effect, physicians can potentially be held legally liable if someone taking an anti-epileptic dies by suicide. This is especially true if the deceased patient was taking the drug after the FDA mandating warning labels on the medications. The most obvious area of concern is the lack of sufficient monitoring of the patient prescribed Lyrica and other epilepsy medication.  Further physicians should warn the patient and family members, after approval by the patient, of the signs and symptoms of an increased risk for suicide.  Failure to warn and monitor appropriately is like throwing the dice with patient safety.

Suicide Risks of Antiepileptic Medications

The dangers associated with anti-epileptic medications have been apparent for a long time. Back in 2008, the New York Times wrote an article warning that patients prescribed certain anti-epileptic medications including Lyrica had double the risks of suicidal tendencies when compared with those not taking the medications. The risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among patients dosed with placebo medications was .22 percent and the risk associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors among those dosed with the anti-epileptics rose to .43 percent.

This is a significant increase, especially considering that suicidal thinking can lead to suicidal actions and death by suicide. The increased risk is also a problem because it can begin as early as the first week that the medication therapy is administered and the risk can persist for the entire time that someone takes the medications.

Unfortunately, despite the increased risk, the drugs initially lacked a warning label and, at first, the F.D.A. did not believe that it was appropriate to require a warning.

The F.D.A. conducted placebo controlled studies on the use of 11 anti-epileptic drugs to assess the risk and studied the drug’s use, not just in treating epilepsy, but also in treating other health conditions and disorders. Based on its findings, the F.D.A. issued safety alerts on both December 16, 2008 and January 31, 2009.

On May 5, 2009, the FDA issued an update mandating that manufacturers of anti-epileptic drugs and anti-convulsant drugs needed to alter their product labels to include warnings about increased risks of suicidal thoughts and actions. Manufacturers would also be required to create a medication guide in order to better explain the risks.

The medications affected that the F.D.A. required a new warning for included:

• Carbatrol
• Celontin
• Depakene
• Depakote ER
• Depakote sprinkles
• Depakote tablets
• Dilantin
• Equetro
• Felbatol
• Gabitril
• Keppra
• Keppra XR
• Klonopin
• Lamictal
• Lyrica
• Mysoline
• Neurontin
• Peganone
• Stavzor
• Tegretol
• Tegretol XR
• Topamax
• Tranxene
• Tridione
• Trileptal
• Zarontin
• Zonegran
• Generic versions of these anti-epileptic medications.

Those who lost loved ones due to suicide or who experienced harm as a result of suicidal tendencies may have a legal claim against physicians or other prescribers of these medications due to the increased risk of suicide. Those who lost a loved one or who were injured prior to the label change may be able to make their case based on the drug company’s failure to warn the public about the high risk of suicide the medicine created while others can use strict liability rules to take action against the manufacturers of the defective and dangerous drugs.

If you lost a loved one to suicide, contact the Dallas Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding drug manufacturers accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, more than one million people each year die by suicide. Unfortunately, while there are certain recognized factors that can make it more likely someone will act on suicidal tendencies, our Dallas, TX suicide lawyers know that it can be difficult to predict with any accuracy when someone will try to take his or her own life.

Recently, however, researchers have been working to better understand what suicide risk factors are the best predictor of who will attempt to die by suicide. The findings of the study were published in the journal Psychological Medicine and reported on by The Atlantic.

Which Risk Factors Predict Suicide Deaths

To better understand how risk factors affect deaths from suicide, researchers at Land University in Sweden and at Stanford University in the United States worked together to conduct a population-wide study. Census data, Sweden’s national death registry and both inpatient and outpatient registries were used to obtain information on more than seven million Swedish adults. Based on this information, researchers attempted to determine both the suicide rates and the risk factors leading up to the suicide deaths.

According to the results, there were more than 8,721 members who died by suicide from the years 2001 to 2008. Researchers studied the deaths and determined that:

• Depression was the risk factor with the highest overall link to suicides. Depression created a 32-fold increased risk of suicide and suicide deaths were most common within 13 weeks of an initial diagnosis of depression.
• The chances of death due to suicide were highest for individuals with any type of psychiatric diagnosis.
• A poor social network caused an increase in the suicide risk but only by a small margin. Both divorce and being unmarried were considered indicators of a poorer social network.
• Men were approximately three times as likely as women to die by suicide.
• Men who were young, single and had a low level of education had a higher suicide risk than women.
• Mental illness was a stronger risk factor for suicide for women than for men.
• Among the social risk factors for suicide, women were most affected by unemployment and men were most affected by being single.
• Patients with physical ailments were also more likely to die by suicide. Those with cancer, spine disorders, obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, or stroke history were between 1.4 and 2.1 times as likely to die by suicide as people without these medical problems.

This study was one of the largest population-wide studies to consider a variety of different risk factors and their implications on suicide deaths.  The study also revealed that around 57 percent of women and 45 percent of men visited a doctor within three months of the death by suicide, and that 29.5 percent of women and 21.7 percent of men had seen a doctor as recently as two-weeks prior.

There are clearly lots of missed opportunities for doctors to identify suicide risks and to take action, and healthcare professionals need to get better at understanding the predictors of suicide so they can provide help to those who reach out.

If you lost a loved  one to suicide, contact the Dallas Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call  214-618-8222.

According to a recent survey of 2,345 U.S. adults conducted online in April 2013, only around 33 percent of Americans reported that they were very happy. The Huffington Post reports that this indicates a decline in happiness that has continued over the last two years.  The survey also revealed something even more disturbing than the fact that most Americans aren’t that happy: it revealed that happiness varies by race.

Our Dallas suicide lawyers know that there are a lot of risk factors that can contribute to making someone more likely to die by suicide. Recent evidence suggests that race and class may be among those factors, especially as income inequality grows in the United States and as we struggle with ongoing economic challenges and an increasingly low-wage job market.

Minority Status Can Affect Suicide Risk

The Huffington Post indicated that African-Americans and whites are at roughly the same levels of happiness, although reports of satisfaction have declined among African-Americans in recent years. Around 34 percent of whites indicated that they were happy, while an estimated 36 percent of American-Americans said that they are happy (down from 44 percent in 2011).

Hispanics, however, had the lowest rates of people reporting that they were very happy. Only 28 percent of Hispanic – fewer than three out of every 10- said that they were very happy. This is both a significant decline from 2011 when 35 percent said they were happy and a significantly lower percentage than among either African Americans or Caucasians.

Although researchers were cautious to indicate that a clear cause of unhappiness cannot be determined from the research, factors such as college degree status and work situation may be affecting the happiness of respondents and especially of Hispanics.

Unfortunately, when people are less happy, they are more likely to suffer from depression and are more likely to have suicidal tendencies. Of course, merely not being happy is not generally enough to lead someone to attempt suicide. However, race and class differences likely do have an impact on suicidal tendencies. In fact, in one area in the Hamptons, a local high school is seeing the consequences of changing racial demographics as three students out of 900 committed suicide, all of whom were Hispanic.

According to the New York Times, East Hampton High faced an “uncomfortable ethnic integration problem,” that had been festering in the background for a long time. East Hampton is traditionally a very wealthy area, but in recent years there have been many poorer Hispanic residents and children who moved to East Hampton years after their parents had arrived and who were struggling to readjust to their parents, learn a new language, and enter a new school that is “rarefied even by the standards of the average American student.”

Three of the students who entered into this environment committed suicide in just three years, which is far above the regional average. One, a 16-year-old junior from Ecuador, hung himself just days after homecoming. The suicide was the second in three years and was followed by another suicide death two months later. The suicides were described as bringing to the surface concerns about the racial and economic divisions among students.

While this school is a microcosm, situations like this may arise more and more throughout the United States, especially as demographics shift and especially if divisions in happiness levels continue to grow. Understanding the impact of race and class on suicide rates may thus become a very important issue in upcoming years.

If you lost a loved one to suicide, contact the Dallas Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call 214-618-8222.

Dallas, TX suicide lawyer Skip Simpson knows that those who use a gun in a suicide attempt are much more likely to be effective than those who try to kill themselves via other methods. This is why it is especially alarming that new research shows many kids considering suicide have access to guns in the home.

As NBC News reports, researchers have found that as many as one in five kids who is at risk of suicide lives in a home where guns are accessible. It is very important that parents and mental health professionals watch for signs of suicide when there are guns in the home in order to ensure that kids are not put at risk.

Access to Guns Dangerous for Suicidal Teens

Suicide is the number three cause of death for young people between the ages of 10 and 24. In some states like Washington number 2 cause. Each year, around 4,600 kids die by suicide, with 45 percent of those kids using guns in their suicides.

Unfortunately, when a young adult attempts to use a gun to die by suicide, this is much more likely to result in death than other methods. People who use pills or who cut themselves are successful in actually killing themselves only three percent of the time, in large part because these methods take a longer time to work and are harder to accomplish.

A gun, on the other hand, can result in instant death or grave injury.  This is why almost half of all successful completed suicides were done with a firearm.

With young adults at greater risk for suicide and with guns the most lethal suicide method, the high number of suicidal teens with access to guns is beyond disturbing.

The Research

The information on the number of teens with access to guns was presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting. Researchers obtained their data using simple questionnaires that were handed out to kids visiting emergency rooms. The results of the questions indicated that:

• 29 percent of the kids who answered the question were at risk for suicide. Especially disturbing was the fact that one in ten kids who were at the emergency room for reasons other than psychiatric complaints were still found to be at risk of suicide.
• 17 percent reported that there were guns in or around their homes.
• 31 percent of kids who were at risk of suicide and who had guns in their homes knew how to access the guns and the same percentage knew where the bullets were kept.
• 15 percent of suicidal teens knew where both the guns and the bullets were kept.

As this data shows, there are many kids who are potentially at risk of dying by suicide whose parents have guns in the home. Worse, a teen may be suicidal and parents may be unaware of this and thus not able to monitor the young person or make sure the guns are properly and securely stored.

It is essential that parents know when their kids are at risk of suicide in order to ensure that these young people cannot easily access guns. Of course young kids should never be able to easily access guns. Mental health professionals need to be on the lookout for signs of danger so they can let parents know when action needs to be taken to prevent a potential death-by-suicide.

The worn out quote by LaPierre that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun,” fails to address adults and children at risk for suicide who are not bad guys but people who are overwhelmed at the moment.

If you lost a loved  one to suicide, contact the Dallas Law Offices of Skip Simpson, dedicated to holding mental health counselors accountable. Call 214-618-8222.