The Suicide Awareness Walk was held last week at Malad High School in conjunction with National Suicide Prevention Month.  The walk, officially for “Awareness, Prevention, and Remembrance” is held across the country during the month of September to remind communities that suicide is an issue that can and does affect many lives regardless of location.  The event included a number of tables with information and resources, a series of presentations, and a planned walk along a pathway of signs set up to remember those who had died by suicide.  Due to the adverse weather of the night, the walk itself was held inside the building, though many people chose to brave the elements and walk the perimeter of the high school to read the names.

Sponsors for the event included the Oneida Crisis Center, Nell J Redfield Memorial Hospital, Labyrinth Assessment and Behavioral Services, the Troy Estep Family, The MHS Counseling department, Southeastern Idaho Public Health, and Summit Creek Counseling.

Each of the sponsoring organizations had tables set up in the lobby area, and representatives on hand to explain the services they offered.

The Oneida Crisis Center set up a bridge inside the lobby with the following banner: “There are too many people, alone and isolated in their pain, who need to cross the bridge to communication.  To the person in trouble, the message is TRUST, SHARE, TALK.  To their families and friends, it is REACH OUT, LISTEN, CARE.  Somebody must cross the bridge first.”  As the Crisis Center’s Melena Jimenez explained, “This is all about communication.  Communication is the first step to making things better, and that bridge is so important.  But someone does have to take the first step to make it happen.”  At the other end of the bridge, the Crisis Center handed out items related to communication—phone cases, chargers, screen protectors and other things representative of reaching out. 

The event program inside the MHS gym was introduced by Tyson Daniels, Director of Social Services at Nell J Redfield Memorial Hospital, and included remarks from ISU doctoral student Brandi Moss and Hospital Director John Williams. 

Brandi Moss is a student in Idaho State University’s Family Nurse Practitioner Program.  As part of Moss’s doctoral degree, she will be teaching classes in “QPR,” a strategy for aiding in suicide prevention.  “I’m here because I’m working on a project teaching suicide prevention skills here in the community,” Moss said.  “I wanted to start with a story about suicide and how it can sometimes be averted with a simple intervention.  The Golden Gate bridge has a very sad history with suicide,” she began.  

Moss went on to relate the September, 2000 story of Kevin Hines, who had decided to kill himself by jumping off the bridge as so many others had done before him.  However, he told himself that if even one person “engaged with him or asked him if he were okay, he wouldn’t carry through with it.”  He took the city bus, crying.  Though many people looked at him, no one interacted with him.  He got to the bridge and walked back and forth , continuing to cry, but no one stopped to talk to him.  Eventually, he jumped.  “He explained that as soon as he jumped he regretted his decision, and worked furiously to land feet first and survive.  He recalls feeling something repeatedly bump into him, which he thought must be a shark.  It turned out to be a sea lion, which stayed with him until he was able to get to safety.  Even the intervention of the sea lion was enough to convince him that he was cared for and important.”

While some of those elements were more dramatic than many people’s experience, Moss explained that research of suicide survivors showed that many of them were waiting for anyone to reach out to them.  “Suicide,” Moss continued, “is life threatening, but is preventable in most cases.  I have worked in health care with patients struggling with thoughts of suicide, and have seen the pain and hopelessness that they are handling.  As part of my Nurse Practitioner program, I was tasked with coming up with a plan to improve the health care process, and through some very difficult and heart-breaking experiences, I realized we need more help preventing suicide.”

Moss’s solution was to plan a series of courses in QPR strategies for those in need of suicide intervention.  QPR stands for “Question, Persuade, Refer” and explains a series of steps that can be applied to provide emergency aid to those in crisis, in much the same way CPR can be used to mitigate immediate medical threats.  QPR is designed to prevent a person from harming themselves before they can reach the professional help necessary for their situation.  “This course is not going to teach you to prevent suicidal thoughts and depression, just like CPR won’t teach you to cure heart attacks.  It will teach you how to become a bridge to keep someone alive long enough to get to the help they need.”

She related a story of the “Hold on, Wait!” man in Japan.  A retired police officer, he patrols a cliffside which, like the Golden Gate Bridge, is a location known for its frequency of suicide attempts.  His only training is a desire to prevent death as much as possible.  “What I am trying to create here,” Moss said, “is a league of ‘Hold on, wait!’ people who can save lives with their simple presence and caring, because together we are stronger.”    

She will be holding courses to train those interested in the application of QPR principles during the months of October and November.  The courses will be held at the Event Center on September 29 at 5:00 p.m., the Hospital on Thursday, October 5 at 11:00 a.m. and on Wednesday, October 18 at 1:00 p.m., at the Event Center on Friday, November 10 at 5:00 p.m. and once more at the Hospital on Saturday, November 18 at 11:00 a.m.  Questions about the schedule or courses can be sent to [email protected].  The training sessions are about ninety minutes.

John Williams spoke to the crowd about two new facilities which have opened up in the region.  A year ago, the state government rearranged funding within the health field to create a Rise Up! Initiative.  Partly as a result of this initiative, a new facility in Pocatello has opened which provides assessment services to families.  The second program is a home in Idaho Falls.  Both facilities allow for youth to find a temporary refuge from potentially turbulent environments while they deal with underlying issues that can lead to suicidal ideation.

Williams explained that in his early college days he worked at an in-patient at-risk youth center, which is the experience that brought him into health care.  While he has not had a chance to personally spend a lot of time with either of the programs or facilities yet, he expressed his belief that the work they were doing was very necessary and important.  He encouraged those in attendance to pursue information on the Rise Up program as another resource to bring to bear on the issue of suicide.

Tyson Daniels, director of the hospital’s Social Service department then addressed the crowd.  He began by asking the audience to think about whether they had had the experience of being on the receiving end of negative comments that made them feel bad.  He then asked people to think about the opposite—whether they had had the experience of meeting someone who made them feel good, and valuable.  He labeled those experiences a “good voice, and a bad voice.”  

Daniels recounted an experience where he had run into someone he recognized from high school.  In the course of speaking with her, it turned out that she felt he had been mean to her in high school, and she did not wish to talk to him.  “It really took me aback.  I didn’t remember ever singling this person out or meaning to make them feel bad.  However, we sometimes do make mistakes, and that stuck with me.  That was an embarrassing and sad moment in my life.”

He went on to explain an opposite experience he had on his mission.  He had a companion who was “in a really bad spot” in terms of his mood and attitude.  After dealing with underlying tension, Daniels finally asked him what the issue was.  “I don’t know all the emotions that you’re feeling, but how can I help?” Daniels had asked.  The companion began to open up, and they “had a great conversation all the way until morning.”  It turned into a great experience for Daniels serving with this man, who changed over the next few months into a positive person who told him “you changed my life.”  Daniels told him that it was all him, that he was “an awesome person who just needed to find who he was.”  

“I say this not to pat myself on the back, but to make the point that hearing from him about how our talk had changed his life was the good voice.  I did not like hearing that bad voice in the first example, but I really appreciated the second.  And so, what kind of voice do we want to be?  To we want to be a positive voice in people’s lives, helping people bear their burdens and being there for them?  None of us are alone—we are here for you.  There are parents, advisors, leaders, teachers…we love you.  We want to cheer each other on.”  “Just a reminder tonight that you are awesome.  We’re proud of you and we love you.”

Although the rain wasn’t in full force by the time of the scheduled walk, it had been intermittent throughout the evening and the organizers decided to instead have attendees walk through the school back to the main lobby for additional conversation and information.  Events like the Walk are important to raise community awareness of a topic that is often shrouded in silence, despite the wide and serious effects it brings with it.  The message of the speakers and the sponsors of the event was uniformly that help was available, and that there were people who cared even if that sometimes doesn’t seem to be the case.  Organizers expressed gratitude to the many people who showed up for the event.  “It’s amazing to see so many people in the community out for something as important as this,” Moss said.