Suicide walk raises awareness on quiet subject

Amber Spring, the chair of the Local Advisory Council on Mental Health for Hill County, said this is the first year the LAC has put on a walk of this nature.

The Out of the Darkness Walk is a nationwide event that aims to bring suicide awareness to communities. One of the issues with the suicide problem, Spring said, is that people don't talk about it when it needs to be talked about.

A crowd of people gathered in front of the Vande Bogart Library at Montana State University-Northern to listen to speakers talk about their experiences with suicide, whether their own or others'.

"We have gathered around this clock tonight," Spring said, motioning to the clock tower next to the group, "to say it's time. It's time to talk about suicide. It's time to talk about depression. It's time to talk about where to get help. It's time to talk about the alarming rates of suicide here in Montana and Hill County."

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Montana has the third highest suicide rate out of all states in the nation, behind Wyoming and Alaska. Hill County alone had 22 suicides in 2014, Spring said.

"This is not about statistics," Spring said. "That's not going to help anything. What is going to help is recognizing that mental illness is a disease we can't break. It's not something we can just snap out of. Most people who commit suicide don't want to die. They just want to stop hurting."

She said suicide prevention is about recognizing signs and addressing suicidal thoughts or emotions people show. Listening to people is key, and one of the best way to help others.

Michael Woods attempted suicide when he was a teenager, by firing a handgun into his head. He lived through it and now travels the area telling his story as part of Out of the Woods Suicide Prevention Program.

"Every individual that contemplates suicide - there's never one thing that pushes them over the edge," Woods said.

When he attempted his own, he was participating in drinking and drugs, and was having relationship and work problems because of it. He lost his girlfriend and his job, and his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend and his friends started to bully him. Woods kept drinking and causing problems for himself, he said. Eventually, he bought a handgun to protect himself with.

Before he used the handgun on himself, he called EMTs to let them know what was happening because he didn't want his family to find his body by his favorite fishing spot. Those EMTs saved his life, Woods said, after he shot himself in the head.

As Woods was coming out of an induced coma some time later, he began to see how many people had left cards, flowers, visited him and such.

"The biggest impact was how many people I had hurt," Woods said.

Woods is now married and he and his wife just had their first child.

A few community members also spoke of their run-ins with suicide, whether it was contemplating their own or it was experiencing someone else's contemplation or attempt.

Attendees of the walk were given luminaries to light on the campus lawn and they took a walk around MSU-Northern in remembrance of those they lost and those who were saved.