Walkers hope to expose suicide crisis

Molly Ball

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005 | 10:17 a.m.

Suddenly, Lynette Kish was seeing suicide everywhere.

After her teenage daughter killed herself, it seemed everyone she knew was also grieving for a loved one's suicide. A co-worker's son. Another co-worker's daughter. A friend of her fiance's father.

While reading a recent newspaper story about a 12-year-old boy who shot and killed himself with his father's gun, she recognized names in the article. She had worked with the boy's grandmother.

Why, she wondered, was there such a rash of suicides? The answer, she realized, was that she was noticing for the first time a longstanding problem.

"I had no idea because it's never talked about," she said. "But it is a crisis, absolutely. Every 17 minutes somebody commits suicide (in the United States)."

To make local residents aware of the issue, Kish is helping organize a 5-kilometer walk next week. It will be the first time Nevada has participated in the national Out of the Darkness campaign of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The walk also raises money, through sponsorships, for suicide prevention efforts.

Unlike most suicides, 16-year-old Brittany Kish's death wasn't kept quiet. She killed herself at Clark County's Juvenile Detention Center, where she was not checked on for more than half an hour despite the fact that she had been put on suicide watch. Her death, the first at the facility in nearly 30 years, generated a storm of controversy.

Lynette Kish has been on something of a crusade since then -- appearing in the media, joining support groups and organizations, sending constant letters and e-mails to friends, acquaintances, lawmakers and even Tom Cruise -- with the twin goals of reforming the juvenile detention system's treatment of troubled youths and calling attention to mental illness and suicide. (She was angry at Cruise for his recent comments condemning the use of psychiatric medication.)

Nevada's suicide rate, 19.5 per 100,000 people in 2002, is nearly twice the national average and fourth among states, according to the American Association of Suicidology.

Suicide is the seventh most common cause of death here, accounting for more deaths than influenza and pneumonia combined, nearly as many as kidney disease and more than twice as many as homicide, according to state statistics.

"We have a serious problem that virtually nobody's talking about," said Linda Flatt, community organizer for the Nevada chapter of the Suicide Prevention Action Network.

"For the most part, these are preventable deaths," Flatt said. "It's a matter of education, of being aware of what's going on around you and caring what's going on around you, knowing the risk factors and knowing what to say."

Despite the prevalence of suicide, Debbie Prosser, chairwoman of the upcoming walk, said most people, like Kish, don't understand it until it hits them personally.

"It's happening out there all the time, but unless it happens to you, it doesn't seem real," she said.

Because of taboos surrounding mental illness and suicide, the issues are rarely discussed, she said.

Prosser's 26-year-old roommate killed herself in January 2004, changing Prosser's outlook on life forever and prompting her to look for ways to open others' eyes to the issue.

"Although I knew my friend was depressed, I never would have thought she would take her own life," Prosser said.

The walk, which will follow a route around the UNLV campus on Oct. 8, is expected to draw about 200 people and raise about $20,000 for local and national prevention programs, Prosser said. But she said simply making people aware of the problem is her main goal.

By educating people about the frequency of suicide and its warning signs, deaths can be prevented, she said.

"With my friend, there were signs, but I did not think that that was an option," Prosser said. "She used my gun."

Had she believed her friend was suicidal, she never would have kept a gun in the house, Prosser said.

Lynette Kish has already achieved many of the changes she sought in the juvenile detention system. Four workers were disciplined or fired for lapses that allowed Brittany's death to occur, policies at the detention center have been changed, and recently the county approved funding for a permanent mental health unit at the facility.

Now, she said, she wants to see more help given to people contemplating suicide, especially teens. One encouraging recent development, she said, is a federal grant, awarded last week, that will allow teens to be screened for depression at school.

"People either don't want to see it, or they miss it," she said of the signs of depression. "But if we don't help them when they're youths, they're not going to make it to be adults."

More information about the walk can be found at www.outofthedarkness.org.