Thoughts of suicide plague those on verge of losing all

He opened the door before they knocked. Two Metropolitan police officers stood on the landing, chatter hissing from radios, hands stilling the sway of nightsticks and gear dangling from belts.

Meyers had been home all day in front of his computer, a spot he occupied most days since he lost his bartending job in 2008. But he knew why the police were there.

“One of your Facebook friends called and said they were concerned about you,” one officer said.

Meyers stepped back, swung the door wide.

“You better come in. I don’t want the neighbors to hear,” he told them.

Thus began the police welfare check on a man that friends feared was suicidal. Early that morning, Meyers, 55, had posted a note on his Facebook account titled “I’m so tired of being tired.” In it, he alluded to the end of his life.

Hard hit by the recession, unemployed Nevadans are turning despondent, desperate, even suicidal. Calls from the suicidal jobless have increased in recent months, says Debbie Gant-Reed, hot-line coordinator for the Crisis Call Center in Reno. The center serves as Nevada’s suicide hot line.

“People who have never called a crisis line are calling now because they can’t get work, especially in Clark County,” Gant-Reed says. “We are getting tons of calls from Clark County people who once had a fairly decent lifestyle with a car, a house, and now they’re losing everything.”

In 2010, the hot line received 4,007 suicide-related calls; 3,931 callers cited basic needs — employment, shelter, food — as their reason for calling, Gant-Reed says. In comparison, 3,824 suicide calls came in 2009, with 3,352 citing basic needs; 2,669 suicide-related calls were made in 2008, of which 2,653 were for basic needs.

Nationwide, Nevada ranked fourth in suicides in 2006, the most recent year that statistics were available from the state’s Office of Suicide Prevention. In Clark County, suicides have increased, according to the Clark County coroner’s office. In 2010, 404 people killed themselves, up from 367 the year before.

Researchers at Texas A&M University and Loyola University Chicago have found a strong link between suicide and unemployment, and say that the longer a person is unemployed, the greater his or her risk of suicide.

“It’s just a sad reality, it’s become very difficult for people who are looking for work or help and seeing nothing out there,” says Gregg Rosen , co-founder of the American 99ers Union, a national coalition of advocates for the long-term unemployed.

Rosen has been involved in several instances in which an unemployed person posted suicidal comments on Union members’ message boards or Facebook pages. While Meyers did not call the hot line, his Facebook note launched an army of would-be rescuers, all unemployed people who worked the phones and the Internet intent on saving him.

Out of work, with $157 to his name, he was on the verge of eviction. Utilities hadn’t been paid and could be turned off at any time. Homelessness was not an option for him, he said. Death was his solution. Because Meyers uses a pseudonym online – he’s afraid of harassment or discrimination by future employers — his friends couldn’t track him down. Someone, Meyers doesn’t know who, called the police.

“We deal with something regarding suicide on a daily basis,” says Sgt. Tim Bedwell, spokesman for the North Las Vegas police department.

Metropolitan and North Las Vegas police teach officers how to handle calls involving suicidal people through their crisis intervention training programs. Not all officers have gone through the program, say Bedwell and Sgt. Glen Wilde, crisis intervention training coordinator for Las Vegas police. But all officers are taught tactics on how to deal with suicidal and mentally ill people. They frequently conduct welfare checks after friends and family members call the hot line or dispatch and voice concerns about a loved one’s safety, the police say.

Officers who visited Meyers in January talked with him, measuring his state of mind.

“They asked me if I was suicidal,” recalls Meyers, who insists he wasn’t at the time. “They asked me how I felt about the police. They were very professional, very friendly. Concerned. They seemed like a couple of regular guys with a little bit more authority.”

Meyers apologized for the situation. Before they left, the officers gave him business cards and told him to call for a ride to the shelter, if he needed it. He didn’t. Several of his online friends offered places to stay across the country. He moved in with one in Las Vegas.

In these situations, police are limited in what they can do, Bedwell says. Nevada Revised Statutes allow the police to conduct what is called a Legal 2000 during such calls. It does not allow them to commit a person to a psychiatric facility. Rather, the procedure compels subjects to receive a mental health evaluation within 72 hours, and they are taken from the scene by ambulance to a hospital, he explains.

Whether a person needs that kind of intervention is assessed by the officers who respond to the call, Wilde says.

Sometimes loved ones express frustration that the police or local government agencies can’t do more, state suicide prevention representatives say. Budget cuts and overwhelming demand have reduced funds for programs that can help people with their rent, utilities, mental health and other issues. In reality, about the only thing anyone can do at this point is to listen, Gant-Reed says.

“Listening can be cathartic to some people, especially someone who’s been fairly affluent in their life and they feel like they can’t talk to their friends or family,” Gant-Reed says. “We don’t have a bagful of resources to give people, unfortunately, because we’re dependent on what’s available.”

She does a lot of creative problem-solving.

“I have referred more people to the plasma center than I ever have before,” Gant-Reed says. “The money’s not going to pay their rent or utilities, but it might get some food on the table or some bus passes.”

Linda Flatt, Nevada’s suicide prevention trainer and networking facilitator, is based in Las Vegas. She often gets calls from people out of state asking her to check on a loved one in town. Her work involves policymaking and training in suicide prevention; she does not perform crisis intervention and must leave that kind of action up to the police.

“When people call me and ask what can be done, the first thing I tell them is, if someone is threatening themselves, it’s OK to call the nonemergency number,” says Flatt, referring to 3-1-1.

Calls to the Crisis Call Center from Clark County tend to be more desperate than calls coming from elsewhere, Gant-Reed says. Usually, the callers have exhausted their resources and feel hopeless. Gant-Reed tells people to do something before getting to that point. Move in with a friend or relative, leave Nevada to find work, if necessary, she says.

“It’s frustrating for me, because the big news is the budget cuts,” Flatt says. “But you can still take somebody to an emergency room. You may have to wait, but in order to save a life, you wait.”

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564.