Area trend sees more youths trying suicide

Warning signs of suicide

Signs someone may be in the attempting stage

Source: Suicide Prevention Center Inc.

Eleven-year-old Kamden Ketchell liked baseball and was looking forward to his Little League team’s opening game.

Thirteen-year-old Paul Hauan was just a month removed from a family vacation to Florida, where he rode the Space Mountain roller coaster at Disney World.

Thirteen-year-old Dylan Roach was a Boy Scout who had recently been inducted into the National Honor Society.

Each was a special kid who left behind few clues that something was wrong.

The apparent suicides of these area middle school students this spring has school districts evaluating the effectiveness of bullying programs and setting up anonymous tip lines.

The families are left looking for answers.

“I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through this. He was my only son. Our family name and lineage died with him,” said James Ketchell Jr. of Cable, Kamden’s father.

The youths didn’t know each other but are bound in death. They represent an emerging — and deeply disturbing — local trend of younger and younger children taking their own lives.

“It used to be rare to see a suicide under age 15, now we’re seeing a lot of attempts by 11- and 12-year-olds,” said Tricia Marks, president and CEO of the Miami Valley based Suicide Prevention Center Inc. “It hasn’t been a huge jump, but it’s something very disturbing.”

The Suicide Prevention Center answers about 4,000 calls a month. Marks said nearly one-quarter of the calls are coming from adolescents and young adults younger than 22. The trend she’s noted, younger children are moving from suicidal gestures — like scratching a wrist or taking multiple aspirins — to more lethal methods that leave little time for intervention.

Autopsies still are pending on the three young deaths in Champaign, Montgomery and Preble counties, but police reports indicate:

• Ketchell of Cable in Champaign County died April 28 from an apparent hanging.

• Hauan of Riverside died from an apparent gunshot wound at 8:10 p.m. May 21.

• Roach of Eaton shot himself with his father’s gun on May 12.

The Springfield News-Sun reached out to the boys’ families, their schools, police and experts in adolescent behavior and suicide prevention to try to gain some understanding about why children so young would end their lives. None of the boys left suicide notes. Rumors of bullying by the community at-large circulated after every death.

Simple explanations seem elusive.

Nationally, suicide is — and has been for the past decade — relatively rare for youths from ages 5 to 14, compared to adults, just 0.7 per 100,000.

“The younger you go, the more rare it is,” said Jill Harkavy-Friedman, senior director of research and prevention for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

But, in its 2011 Youth Risk Behavioral Report for Ohio, the Centers for Disease Control reported one in seven Ohio students said they had “seriously considered suicide” in the past 12 months. Slightly more than one in seven had “made a plan to commit suicide.”

One in 11 students reported “attempting suicide one or more times in the past 12 months,” nearly 50 percent higher than the national average.

It’s impossible to know how many children attempt suicide because many go unreported. However, records obtained by the News-Sun point to hundreds of adolescents in the region who either threatened or attempted suicide since January 2011.

Data from Kettering Health Network showed 300 attempted suicides by 13- to 22-year-olds treated in its emergency rooms in 2011 — 177 females and 123 males. This includes 80 who were 15 and younger.

So far this year, the network reported treating 126 attempted suicides in the same age group — 31 were 15 or younger.

Dr. Andrew Khavari of the Kettering Behavioral Medical Center said puberty is a dividing line.

“Once they’re adolescents, there’s a far greater incidence” of a suicide attempt, he said.

Records show there is no geographic distinction in where the children live. They are from the cities, suburbs and rural areas.

Calls to the Suicide Prevention Center have escalated after each of the local suicides. Children are making many of the calls.

“We’ve had a lot of kids calling in with guilt, saying they wished they had done something,” Marks said. “We tell them, ‘Listen to your friend.’ If a friend makes a threat, never keep it a secret.”

‘Bullying is running rampant in the schools’

Most districts have zero-tolerance policies against bullying, but more needs to be done, said Marks, who conducts suicide prevention programs around the region.

“Bullying is running rampant in the schools,” she said. “We hear it constantly.”

Experts say it’s most common during middle-school years, a critical time for students’ emotional development.

“A lot of that conflict gets sorted out by high school,” Eaton Superintendent Brad Neavin said, adding that Facebook and other social networking sites have created a hazardous environment. “There’s a distance there that allows kids to be more cruel.”

Marks believes that instead of suspending the bully — which often just makes the bullying more harsh and secretive — the individual and victim should go through counseling together.

“Anytime you have a kid with any kind of problem, you need to be an advocate,” Marks said. “If you just suspend a bully it’s not going to solve the problem.”

As we grow older, adults tend to forget what it was like to be a kid dealing with emotional issues. Never dismiss any of their concerns, no matter how small they may seem, Marks said.

Khavari, who treats troubled 5- to 18-year-olds at Kettering Behavioral Medical Center, said that “developmentally, it’s normal for kids to be very secretive during their teenage years.

“Even if kids don’t want to talk, parents need to show an interest and keep the lines of communication open,” said Khavari, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. “That’s especially true if there are signs the child is struggling, withdrawing or exhibiting signs of depression or anxiety.”

Kids used to be able to escape schoolyard bullies by going home. Now, with the use of cell phones and the explosion of Facebook, there is no escape.

“Social media can allow the bullying to follow the child home. The jury is still out on whether it has led to increased suicides,” Khavari said. “But when I work with families, I recommend that parents monitor their kids’ social media usage closely, have all the passwords and check it regularly. Getting involved soon if there’s a problem can make a big difference.”

Fair haired, freckle-faced boy

James Ketchell described his son as a troubled boy who had difficulty making friends and suffered from anxiety. He had come from a split home and had been separated from his mother. His dad worried that may have given him a feeling of not fitting in.

The fair-haired, freckle-faced boy had risen early for Little League practice on an overcast Saturday — the team’s last before the season opener. Some of his teammates hadn’t shown up because of weather, so Kamden — a fifth-grader at Triad Middle School — had gotten extra one-on-one time with the coach. He even learned he was getting his favorite jersey number, 14.

“He was so excited,” his dad said. “The coach had told him he was doing a good job.”

After practice, Kamden and his family ate lunch and watched a movie, then the father sent his son off to clean his room.

“Where should I put my dirty clothes?” were his last words to his father.

“There was no indication that anything was bothering him. That makes me think it could have been an accident,” the boy’s father said. “At first, I thought it was a joke. Obviously, it was not a joke.”

An incident occurred on the school bus involving Kamden and another student the day before he died. It was serious enough for him to share what happened with his sister, Alandria. They spoke to their dad, who contacted the school.

“They were going to look into it on Monday,” Ketchell said. “Could it have been a factor? I think a lot of things could have been factors.”

Bullying can trigger suicides, but it’s rarely the underlying cause, according to Harkavy-Friedman.

“Most people who are bullied do not kill themselves,” he said.

Craig Meredith, superintendent of Triad Local Schools, said the bus incident was investigated after Kamden’s death.

“Without Kamden, we weren’t able to substantiate how serious this was. The bus driver didn’t see it,” Meredith said. “Could it have been a factor? Of course it could.”

Middle school is a tough time for kids as they struggle to understand who they are.

Since Ketchell’s death, administrators and teachers re-evaluated the district’s anti-bullying program and have decided to take a different approach.

“We’re not sure anti-bullying is a message kids get. It’s so negative. Instead, we want to focus on behaviors we want to see in kids,” Meredith said.

On May 22, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill that would require teachers across the state to be trained in suicide prevention. Its chief sponsor was state Rep. Marlene Anielski, R-Walton Hills, of northeast Ohio, whose 18-year-old son killed himself in 2010. It was introduced on May 29 in the Ohio Senate.

It’s an idea Kamden’s family now advocates.

They also are setting up a foundation in Kamden’s honor, with the mission of providing support to anyone who has suffered from depression, bullying, anger, split families, anxiety, low self-esteem/negative self-image, loneliness, suicide or inability to make friends.

“We wish to raise awareness,” Ketchell said. “We will never know in this lifetime what exactly led to our family’s tragedy. Kamden was not perfect. He was just a little boy with a big heart.”