Linked by pain

2 school massacre survivors, dad kill selves

Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.

Tragedies like the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and Sandy Hook Elementary school massacres eventually fade from view, blunted by other mass shootings and the passage of time. But for the survivors, the pain can never end.

The father of a Sandy Hook victim killed himself Monday, just days after two Stoneman Douglas students also took their lives. The Florida deaths have officials in Parkland and nearby Coral Springs renewing their communities’ focus on the suicide-prevention and mental-health resources that remain available 13 months after a gunman killed 17 people at the high school.

In Newtown, Conn., where 20 first-graders died along with six staff members six years ago, the body of 49-year-old Jeremy Richman was found outside his office Monday morning.

Richman’s daughter, Avielle, was fatally shot at Sandy Hook. He had visited Florida last week and met with the parents of Stoneman Douglas victims, said Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, died there.

Richman and his wife oversaw The Avielle Foundation, a group they started dedicated to preventing violence by better understanding brain health.

“Our hearts are shattered, and our heads are struggling to comprehend,” the foundation said in a statement. “Tragically, his death speaks to how insidious and formidable a challenge brain health can be and how critical it is for all of us to seek help for ourselves, our loved ones and anyone who we suspect may be in need.”

Multiple suicides among mass-shooting survivors can be alarming, but mental-health experts said the Florida deaths are not surprising. They come amid a rising nationwide trend: More than 47,000 U.S. suicides occurred in 2017, at the highest rate in at least half a century – 14 per 100,000. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among U.S. teenagers.

“One of the big risk factors for suicide is exposure to violence,” said Dr. Louis Kraus, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Even if they weren’t hit by bullets or didn’t see shots fired, “anyone who was at that school is at risk,” Kraus said, and should be screened.

“The scars simply don’t go away with a fresh coat of paint,” he said.

Psychologist April Foreman, a board member at the American Association of Suicidology, said survivors are more prone to suicide and thus must be vigilant about mental-health check-ups just as if they had a family history of breast cancer or heart disease.

With help, people can overcome their suicidal impulses, she said.

“It’s not a foregone conclusion that this will happen to everyone who’s been exposed to this, and the majority of people who are suicidal don’t go on to die. They go on to recover and live,” she said.

The first suicide took place March 16. Cara Aiello told WFOR-TV last week that her 18-year-old daughter, Sydney, had suffered from survivor’s guilt – her friend, Meadow Pollack, died in the attack.

Coral Springs police officer Tyler Reik confirmed Monday that a Stoneman Douglas sophomore apparently killed himself Saturday, but said an official determination had not been made pending an autopsy. The boy’s name was not immediately released.