“Your brother is dead….”

That early morning call from her mom came 25 years ago, but Newtown Police Officer Maryhelen McCarthy remembers the moment like it was yesterday.

Long before she envisioned a career in law enforcement, Ms McCarthy was jolted by that message shortly after she arrived to work on the morning of March 15, 1990. Rushing home, she pushed past police officers and emergency workers to witness the body of her youngest brother, Dan, still sitting upright behind the wheel with a tube leading into the driver’s compartment from his car’s tail pipe.

“There was no note… no closure,” Ms McCarthy told The Newtown Bee this week as she stood beside a banner hung at Fairfield Hills reminding residents that September is National Suicide Prevention Month. The banner’s notice is reinforced by the news that last year, more than one person each day here in Connecticut took their own life.

While education, outreach, and memorials are happening throughout the month, as is a related series in The Bee, September 7 to 13 marks National Suicide Prevention Week, surrounding World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10.

Locally, Newtown Health District Director Donna Culbert is serving as a point person and resource on suicide prevention for the community at large.

Ms Culbert said and Ms McCarthy shares the frustration of not really knowing how accurate current state statistics are when it comes to suicide. And both fear the state coroner’s reported number of 353 suicide deaths in 2014 is understated.

“We don’t know how many elderly or infirm people take their own lives using their own medication,” Ms Culbert said. “These deaths are seldom if ever officially listed as suicides.”

“And we don’t know about things like [illegal] drug overdoses,” Ms McCarthy added. “How many of those were accidental? The one thing we know for certain is, 100 percent of suicides are preventable.”

Burying A Brother

The late Dan McCarthy was the youngest of six siblings when he took his life that fateful March morning. And by all appearances, Ms McCarthy recalls, there were no warning signs or apparent concerns that could have lead her brother to this tragic end.

In the days after Dan McCarthy died, his parents were so distraught that his brother and sister had to make the funeral arrangements.

“I had to help pick out his coffin,” Maryhelen McCarthy remembered.

Passersby who notice the banner, surrounded by 353 yellow ribbons and a single red ribbon fashioned into a “broken heart,” will also notice the only photo is that of Dan McCarthy’s gravestone.

“So many tributes after a suicide have pictures of the victim surrounded by family, or photos of them as they might be remembered,” she said. “But with suicide there are no happy endings, so I picked a photo of Dan’s grave.

“As kids, you watch as your brothers and sisters grow up. In my case, my brothers and sisters all grew up to be amazing people. But we won’t ever get a chance to know the amazing person he was going to be. We never got to see Dan grow up,” Ms McCarthy continued.

It is her hope that anyone who passes by the banner, who learns of someone considering suicide, or is considering it themselves, remembers that there is always someone available to help.

“Reach out to a friend or family member, even a co-worker. And if there’s nobody else, call the police,” she said. “In Newtown we have the most compassionate officers trained and ready to respond to your call. They aren’t going to be mad or yell at you; they deal with victims and people in distress all the time, and they are really good at it.”

Ms Culbert also reminds residents that they can call 211 for Infoline, to be immediately patched through to a suicide hotline representative 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

“Make that important first step and make the call,” Ms Culbert urged, looking up toward the banner and pointing at the number 353. “That number is proof that we lose more than one person every day in our state to suicide.”

Both acknowledge that suicide is a stigmatized and difficult topic to bring up.

“Twenty-five years ago, my brother was 23,” Ms McCarthy said. “Back then it was even more difficult to talk about. But it’s time to start talking.”

Start The Conversation

That conversation began with a number of residents who were out walking as Ms McCarthy and Officer Adam Greco were hanging the banner earlier this week.

“People walking by saw us tying up these yellow ribbons, and they came over to find out why,” Ms McCarthy said. “When they found out what we were doing they all joined in to help.”

The American Association of Suicidology (AAS) is working to understand and prevent suicide, in part, by advancing suicidology as a science; encouraging, developing, and disseminating scholarly work in the subject.

The AAS states that a person in acute risk for suicidal behavior most often will show the following warning signs:

*Threatening to hurt or kill him or herself, or talking of wanting to hurt or kill him/herself; and or,

*Looking for ways to kill him/herself by seeking access to firearms, available pills, or other means; and/or,

*Talking or writing about death, dying or suicide, when these actions are out of the ordinary.

These might be remembered as expressed or communicated ideation. If observed, witnesses are urged to seek help as soon as possible by contacting a mental health professional or calling 211 or 911.

Other expanded warning signs of suicide are:

*Increased substance (alcohol or drug) use

*No reason for living; no sense of purpose in life

*Anxiety, agitation, unable to sleep or sleeping all of the time

*Feeling trapped — like there is no way out

*Hopelessness

*Withdrawal from friends, family, and society

*Rage, uncontrolled anger, seeking revenge

*Acting reckless or engaging in risky activities, seemingly without thinking

*Dramatic mood changes

In the next part of our Suicide Prevention Month series, The Newtown Bee will examine local support systems for family members and others bereaved by suicide.