Pets & Suicide

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Pets, especially dogs and cats, can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, ease loneliness, encourage exercise and playfulness, and even improve your cardiovascular health. Caring for an animal can help children grow up more secure and active. However, a pet is not a miracle cure for mental illness. Owning a pet is beneficial and comforting only for those who love and appreciate domestic animals and have the time and money to keep a pet happy and healthy. If you’re simply not an “animal person,” pet ownership is not going to provide you with any health benefits or improve your life.

The Mood-Boosting Power of Pets

The Mood-Boosting Power of Pets


Pets come with some powerful mental health benefits. Here’s how caring for a dog or cat can help you cope with depression, anxiety, and stress.

The health benefits of pets

Most pet owners are clear about the immediate joys that come with sharing their lives with companion animals. However, many of us remain unaware of the physical and mental health benefits that can also accompany the pleasure of snuggling up to a furry friend. It’s only recently that studies have begun to scientifically explore the benefits of the human-animal bond.

Pets have evolved to become acutely attuned to humans and our behavior and emotions. Dogs, for example, are able to understand many of the words we use, but they’re even better at interpreting our tone of voice, body language, and gestures. And like any good human friend, a loyal dog will look into your eyes to gauge your emotional state and try to understand what you’re thinking and feeling (and to work out when the next walk or treat might be coming, of course).

Pets, especially dogs and cats, can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, ease loneliness, encourage exercise and playfulness, and even improve your cardiovascular health. Caring for an animal can help children grow up more secure and active. Pets also provide valuable companionship for older adults. Perhaps most importantly, though, a pet can add real joy and unconditional love to your life.

Studies have found that:

  • Pet owners are less likely to suffer from depression than those without pets.
  • People with pets have lower blood pressure in stressful situations than those without pets. One study even found that when people with borderline hypertension adopted dogs from a shelter, their blood pressure declined significantly within five months.
  • Playing with a dog or cat can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax.
  • Pet owners have lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels (indicators of heart disease) than those without pets.
  • Heart attack patients with pets survive longer than those without.
  • Pet owners over age 65 make 30 percent fewer visits to their doctors than those without pets.
  • While people with pets often experience the greatest health benefits, a pet doesn’t necessarily have to be a dog or a cat. Even watching fish in an aquarium can help reduce muscle tension and lower pulse rate.

One of the reasons for these therapeutic effects is that pets fulfill the basic human need for touch. Even hardened criminals in prison show long-term changes in their behavior after interacting with pets, many of them experiencing mutual affection for the first time. Stroking, hugging, or otherwise touching a loving animal can rapidly calm and soothe you when you’re stressed or anxious. The companionship of a pet can also ease loneliness, and most dogs are a great stimulus for healthy exercise, which can substantially boost your mood and ease depression.

How pets can help you make healthy lifestyle changes

Adopting healthy lifestyle changes plays an important role in easing symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, bipolar disorder, and PTSD. Caring for a pet can help you make healthy lifestyle changes by:

Increasing exercise. Taking a dog for a walk, hike or run are fun and rewarding ways to fit healthy daily exercise into your schedule. Studies have shown that dog owners are far more likely to meet their daily exercise requirements—and exercising every day is great for the animal as well. It will deepen the connection between you, eradicate most behavior problems in dogs, and keep your pet fit and healthy.

Providing companionship. Companionship can help prevent illness and even add years to your life, while isolation and loneliness can trigger symptoms of depression. Caring for a live animal can help make you feel needed and wanted, and take the focus away from your problems, especially if you live alone. Most dog and cat owners talk to their pets, some even use them to work through their troubles. And nothing beats loneliness like coming home to a wagging tail or purring cat.

Helping you meet new people. Pets can be a great social lubricant for their owners, helping you start and maintain new friendships. Dog owners frequently stop and talk to each other on walks, hikes, or in a dog park. Dog owners also meet new people in pet stores, clubs, and training classes.

Reducing anxiety. The companionship of an animal can offer comfort, help ease anxiety, and build self-confidence for people anxious about going out into the world. Because pets live in the moment—they don’t worry about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow—they can help you become more mindful and appreciate the joy of the present.

Adding structure and routine to your day. Many pets, especially dogs, require a regular feeding and exercise schedule. Having a consistent routine keeps an animal balanced and calm—and it can work for you, too. No matter your mood—depressed, anxious, or stressed—one plaintive look from your pet and you’ll have to get out of bed to feed, exercise, and care for them.

Providing sensory stress relief. Touch and movement are two healthy ways to quickly manage stress. Stroking a dog, cat, or other animal can lower blood pressure and help you quickly feel calmer and less stressed.

Get a dog, lose weight

A number of studies have linked owning a dog to losing weight:

  • A year-long study at the Wellness Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago found that walking an overweight dog helped both the animals and their owners shed unwanted pounds. Researchers found that the dogs provided support in similar ways to a human exercise buddy, but with greater consistency and without any negative influence.
  • Another study by the Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction found that public housing residents who walked therapy dogs for up to 20 minutes five days a week lost an average of 14.4 pounds in a year, without changing their diets.
  • A third study, conducted by dog food manufacturer Mars Petcare, found that people with a dog walked 30 minutes more per week than they did before owning a dog.

The health benefits of pets for older adults

As well as providing vital companionship, owning a pet can play an important role in healthy aging by helping you to:

Find meaning and joy in life. As you age, you’ll lose things that previously occupied your time and gave your life purpose. You may retire from your career or your children may move far away. Caring for a pet can bring pleasure and help boost your morale, optimism, and sense of self-worth. Choosing to adopt a pet from a shelter, especially an older pet, can add to your sense of fulfillment, knowing that you’ve provided a home to a pet that may otherwise have been euthanized.

Stay connected. Maintaining a social network isn’t always easy as you grow older. Retirement, illness, death, and relocation can take away close friends and family members. And making new friends can get harder. Pets, especially dogs, are a great way for older adults to spark up conversations and meet new people.

Boost your vitality. You can overcome many of the physical challenges associated with aging by taking good care of yourself. Dogs and cats encourage playfulness, laughter, and exercise, which can help boost your immune system and increase your energy.

How pets help adults with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia

As part of the disease, Alzheimer’s patients may exhibit a variety of behavioral problems, many related to an inability to deal with stress.

  • Research at the University of California at Davis concluded that Alzheimer’s patients suffer less stress and have fewer anxious outbursts if there is a dog or cat in the home.
  • Pets can provide a source of positive, nonverbal communication. The playful interaction and gentle touch from a well-trained, docile animal can help soothe an Alzheimer’s patient and decrease aggressive behavior.
  • In many cases a patient’s problem behavior is a reaction to the stressed response of the primary caretaker. Pets can help ease the stress of caregivers. Cats or caged animals may be more suitable than dogs, which generally require more care and can add to the burden of someone who’s already looking after an Alzheimer’s patient.

The health benefits for children

Not only do children who grow up with pets have less risk of allergies and asthma, many also learn responsibility, compassion, and empathy from having a dog or cat.

  • Unlike parents or teachers, pets are never critical and don’t give orders. They are always loving and their mere presence at home can help provide a sense of security in children. Having an ever-present pet can help ease separation anxiety in children when mom and dad aren’t around.
  • Having the love and companionship of a pet can make a child feel important and help them develop a positive self-image.
  • Kids who are emotionally attached to their pets are better able to build relationships with other people.
  • Studies have also shown that pets can help calm hyperactive or overly aggressive kids. Of course, both the animal and the child need to be trained to behave appropriately with each other.

Children and adults alike can benefit from playing with pets, which can provide a source of calmness and relaxation, as well as a source of stimulation for the brain and body. Playing with a pet can even be a doorway to learning for a child. It can stimulate a child’s imagination and curiosity. The rewards of training a dog to perform a new trick, for example, can teach kids the importance of perseverance. Caring for a furry friend can also offer another benefit to a child: immense joy.

Children with learning disorders and other challenges

Some children with autism or other learning difficulties are better able to interact with pets than people. Autistic children often rely on nonverbal cues to communicate, just as animals do. And learning to first connect with a pet may even help an autistic child in their interactions with people.

  • Pets can help children with learning disabilities learn how to regulate stress and calm themselves, making them better equipped to overcome the challenges of their disorder.
  • Playing and exercising with a dog or cat can help a child with learning disorders stay alert and attentive throughout the day. It can also be a great antidote to stress and frustration caused by the learning disability.

Owning a pet is a major commitment

A pet is not a miracle cure for mental illness. Owning a pet is beneficial and comforting only for those who love and appreciate domestic animals and have the time and money to keep a pet happy and healthy. If you’re simply not an “animal person,” pet ownership is not going to provide you with any health benefits or improve your life.

Even if you love animals, it’s important to understand everything that caring for a pet entails. Owning a pet is a commitment that will last through the animal’s lifetime, perhaps 10 or 15 years in the case of dogs. And at the end of that commitment, you’ll face the grief and mourning that comes with losing a beloved companion.

Other drawbacks to owning a pet are:

Pets cost money. Food bills, veterinary care, licenses, grooming costs, toys, bedding, boarding fees, and other maintenance expenses can mount up. If you’re unemployed or elderly, on a limited fixed income, it may be a struggle to cope with the expense of pet ownership.

Pets require time and attention. As any dog owner will tell you, there’s nothing therapeutic about coming home to a dog that has been locked up in the house on his own all day long. Dogs need daily exercise to stay calm and well-balanced; most other pets require at least daily care and attention.

Owning a pet can curb some of your social activity. A dog can only be left alone for a limited time. By training your dog, you’ll be able to take him with you to visit friends, run errands, or sit outside a coffee shop, for example, but you won’t be able to leave for a spur of the moment weekend away without arranging care for your pet first.

Pets can be destructive. Any pet can have an occasional accident at home. Some cats may be prone to shredding upholstery, some dogs to chewing shoes. While training can help eradicate negative, destructive behavior, they remain common in animals left alone without exercise or stimulation for long periods of time.

Pets require responsibility. Most dogs, regardless of size and breed, are capable of inflicting injury on people if not handled responsibly by their owners. Even cats can scratch or bite. Pet owners need to be alert to any danger, especially around children.

Pets carry health risks for some people. While there are some diseases that can be transmitted from cats and dogs to their human handlers, allergies are the most common health risk of pet ownership. If you or a family member has been diagnosed with a pet allergy, carefully consider whether you can live with the symptoms before committing to pet ownership. Also consider that some friends or relatives with allergies may no longer be able to visit your home if you have a pet.

How to find the perfect pet

If you’ve decided that owning a pet is right for you, congratulations: you’re about to open your life to a unique and rewarding relationship. While people who have pets tend to be happier, more independent, and feel more secure than those without pets, it’s important to select the type of pet that best suits your needs and lifestyle.

Talk to other members of your household and agree on the qualities you want in a pet and those that you’d prefer to avoid. In the case of dogs, man’s best friend comes in countless breeds or mix of breeds, each offering a different blend of personality traits:

  • Do you want an active dog or one that doesn’t need a lot of exercise?
  • Who will look after the dog? Will your children really follow through on their promises?
  • How much time will the dog spend alone each day? Do you intend to hire a dog walker or take the animal to daycare?
  • How big is your living space? Do you have enough room for a large breed?
  • Do you live with young children or someone frail or disabled who would do better with a gentle breed?
  • How much shedding can you tolerate?
  • Do you want a puppy that needs training and housebreaking or a full-grown dog that is already trained?

Purebred vs. mixed breed dogs

If you have a specific breed of dog in mind, you can look for a rescue group that caters to that breed or seek out a reputable breeder. Ask for a referral from other dog owners, a veterinarian, or a local breed club or rescue group, but remember: a reputable breeder will always want to meet you before selling you a dog to ensure that you’ll be a suitable, responsible owner.

Of course, you can also find purebred dogs in shelters—where they’ll cost substantially less than from a breeder—as well as many different types of mixed breed dogs. Mixed breed dogs usually have fewer health problems than their purebred cousins, often have better dispositions, and tend to adapt more easily to a new home. With a purebred, though, it’s easier to know what to expect in regards to size, behavior and health—you’d need to know the different mix of breeds to determine the same of a mutt. Of course, the breed or mix of breeds doesn’t solely determine the character of a dog—much of that is up to you and the kind of home and training you provide for your pet.

Shelter and rescue animals

Whether mixed breed or a purebred, dogs and cats adopted from a shelter or rescue group make excellent pets. For the most part, a pet ends up in a shelter through no fault of his own. His owner may have died or moved to a place that doesn’t allow pets, or the pet may have simply been abandoned by irresponsible owners who bought him on a whim and later discovered that they were unable or unwilling to care for him properly. If any shelter or rescue animal exhibits aggressive behavior, he is typically euthanized rather than offered for adoption.

Rescue groups try to find suitable homes for unwanted or abandoned dogs and cats, many taken from shelters where they would otherwise have been euthanized. Volunteers usually take care of the animals until they can find a permanent home. This means that rescuers are often very familiar with a pet’s personality and can help advise you on whether the pet would make a good match for your needs. By adopting an animal from a shelter or rescue organization, you’ll not only be giving a home to a deserving pet, but you’ll also likely be saving an animal’s life.

Avoid puppies sold in pet stores or online

Pet stores that care about puppies don’t sell them. That’s because the majority of pet stores that sell puppies carry dogs from cruel and inhumane puppy mills. Puppy mills are like dog-making factories where the mother dogs spend their entire lives in cramped cages or kennels with little or no personal attention or quality of life. When the mother and father dogs can no longer breed, they are discarded or killed. Consumers who purchase puppies from pet stores or over the Internet without seeing a breeder’s home firsthand are often unknowingly supporting this cruel industry.

Help stop this cycle of cruelty simply by choosing to adopt your next pet from a shelter or rescue group, or by purchasing a dog only from a responsible breeder who will show you where your puppy was born and raised.

Source: The Humane Society of the United States

Alternatives to pet ownership

If you don’t have the time, money, or stamina to own a pet full-time, there are still ways you can experience the health benefits of being around animals. Even short periods spent with a dog or cat can benefit both you and the animal.

You can ask to walk a neighbor’s dog, for example, or volunteer at an animal shelter. Most animal shelters or rescue groups welcome volunteers to help care for homeless pets or assist at adoption events. You’ll not only be helping yourself, but also helping to socialize and exercise the animals, making them more adoptable.

Some animal shelters and rescue groups offer pet “rental” programs. Dogs and cats that are available for adoption can be rented out for walks or play dates. You can also foster an animal temporarily until a permanent home is found for him, or to decide if the animal is right for you.

A variety of different organizations offer specially trained therapy dogs and cats to visit children’s hospitals, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, hospice programs, shelters, and schools. During these visits, people are invited to pet and stroke the animals, which can improve mood and reduce stress and anxiety.
Source: www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/mood-boosting-power-of-dogs.htm

Suicide Data Reveal New Intervention Spots, Such as Motels and Animal Shelters - 9/20/19


Patterns show places where people who intend to kill themselves go—and give health workers better chances to stop them

Suicide Data Reveal New Intervention Spots, Such as Motels and Animal Shelters

Hanging on Kimberly Repp’s office wall in Hillsboro, Ore., is a sign in Latin: “Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae,” meaning “This is a place where the dead delight in helping the living.”

For medical examiners, it is a mission. Their job is to investigate deaths and learn from them, for the benefit of us all. Repp, however, is not a medical examiner; she is a microbiologist. She is also an epidemiologist for Oregon’s Washington County, where she had been accustomed to studying infectious diseases such as flu or norovirus outbreaks among the living.

But in 2012 she was asked by county officials to look at suicide. The request introduced her to the world of death investigations and also appears to have led to something remarkable: in this suburban county of 600,000, just west of Portland, the suicide rate now is going down. That result is remarkable because national suicide rates have risen, despite decades-long efforts to reverse the deadly trend.

While many factors contribute to suicide, officials here believe they have chipped away at this problem through Repp’s initiative to use data—very localized data that any jurisdiction could collect. Now her mission is to help others learn how to gather and use them.

New York State has just begun testing a system like Repp’s. Humboldt County in California is implementing it. She has gotten inquiries from Utah and Kentucky. Colorado, meanwhile, is using its own brand of data collection to try to achieve the same kind of turnaround.

FOLLOWING THE DEATH INVESTIGATORS

Back in 2012, when Repp looked at the available data—mostly statistics reported periodically to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—she could see that suicide was a big problem and that rates were highest among older white men. But beyond that, the data did not offer a lot of guidance. Plus, they lagged two years behind.

Repp returned to her bosses. “I can tell you who has the highest suicide rate, but I can't tell you what to do about it,” she recalls telling them. “It’s too broad.”

So she turned to the county medical examiner’s death investigators. They gather information at every unnatural death scene to determine the cause (say, drowning or gunshot) and manner (homicide, suicide or accident). It is an important job but a grim one, and it tends to attract unusual personalities.

Repp mustered the courage to introduce herself to one of the investigators, Charles Lovato. “I said, ‘Hi, my name is Kim, and I was hoping to go on a death investigation with you,’” she says. “And he’s like, ‘You’re that weirdo that does outbreak investigations, aren’t you?’ And I’m like, ‘You’re the weirdo that does death investigations.’”

Epidemiologist Kimberly Repp found data in medical examiner reports to reduce suicides. Credit: Adam Wickham KHN

The gambit worked. Repp accompanied Lovato on his grim rounds for more than a year. “Nothing can prepare you for what you’re going to see,” she says. “It gave me a very healthy dose of respect for what they do.”

Repp studied the questions Lovato asked friends and family of the deceased. She watched how he recorded what he saw at the scene. And she saw how a lot of data that helped determine the cause and manner of death never made it into the reports that state and federal authorities use to track suicides. It was a missed opportunity.

DATA ON THE DEAD SAVE LIVES

Repp worked with Lovato and his colleagues to develop a new data-collection tool through which investigators could easily record all those details in a checklist. It included not only age and cause of death but also yes/no questions on things such as evidences of alcohol abuse, histories of interpersonal violence, health crises, job losses, and so on.

In addition, the county created a procedure, called a suicide fatality review, to look more closely at these deaths. The review is modeled on child fatality reviews, a now mandatory concept that dates to the 1970s. After getting the okay from family members, key government and community representatives meet to investigate individual suicides with an eye toward prevention. The review group might include health care organizations to look for recent visits to the doctor; veterans’ organizations to check service records; law enforcement; faith leaders; pain-clinic managers; or mental health support groups.

The idea, Repp says, is not to point fingers. It is to look for system-level interventions that might prevent similar deaths. “We were able to identify touch points in our community that we had not seen before,” she adds.

For example, data revealed a surprising number of suicides at hotels and motels. They also showed a number of those who killed themselves had experienced eviction or foreclosure or had a medical visit within weeks or days of their death. And the information revealed that people in crisis regularly turn their pets over to an animal shelter.

But what to do with that information? Experts have long believed that suicide is preventable, and there are evidence-based programs to train people in how to identify and respond to folks in crisis and direct them to help. That is where Debra Darmata, Washington County’s suicide-prevention coordinator, comes in. Part of Darmata’s job involves running these training programs, which she described as like CPR for mental health.

The training is typically offered to people such as counselors, educators or pastors. But with the new data, the county realized it was missing people who may have been the last to see the decedents alive. It began offering the training to motel clerks and housekeepers, animal shelter workers, pain clinic staffers, and more.

It is a relatively straightforward process: Participants are taught to recognize signs of distress. Then they learn how to ask a person if he or she is in crisis. If so, the participants’ role is not to make the person feel better or to provide counseling or anything of the sort. It is to call a crisis line, and the experts will take over from there.

Since 2014, Darmata says that more than 4,000 county residents have received training in suicide prevention. “I’ve worked in suicide prevention for 11 years,” she adds, “and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The sheriff’s office has begun sending a deputy from its mental health crisis team when doing evictions. And on the eviction paperwork, it added the number for the crisis line and information on a county walk-in mental health clinic. Local health care organizations have new procedures to review cases involving patient suicides, too.

From 2012 to 2018, Washington County’s suicide rate decreased by 40 percent, preliminary data show. To be sure, though, 68 people died by suicide here last year, so preventing even a handful of cases can lower the rate quite a bit.

SPREADING THE IDEA

Repp cautions that the findings cannot be generalized. What is true in suburban Portland may not be true in rural Nebraska or in San Francisco—or even in suburban New Jersey, for that matter. Every community needs to look at its own data.

Still, Jay Carruthers, who runs New York State’s Suicide Prevention Office, saw the potential. “To be able to close the loop and connect [the data] to prevention? That’s the beauty,” he says. This year, the state is beginning to test a similar system in several counties.

In northern California’s Humboldt County, public health manager Dana Murguía had been frustrated for some time that local prevention plans were not making a dent. “I said, ‘We don’t need another plan. We need an operations manual,’” she recalls. “That’s what I feel Dr. Repp has given us.” Humboldt began using a Washington County–style checklist this year, and county officials have identified several unexpected touch points, including public parks and motels where people have died by suicide. Now those sad facts can become action plans.

In Colorado, a different effort to reduce suicides also began with extensive data analysis. There, officials realized that while youth suicide has understandably been a focus, the biggest numbers are among older men. They have not only crafted materials specifically for men in crisis but also for specialized groups, such as veterans, farmers and construction workers.

“What was unexpected to me was how empowering these data would be to so many different people to make change”—including Lovato and the other death investigators, Repp says. “To know that they’re actually keeping the living alive is really powerful.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

IF YOU NEED HELP

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or use the online Lifeline Chat, both available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Source:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/suicide-data-reveal-new-intervention-spots-such-as-motels-and-animal-shelters/

   

 Veterinarians Face Unique Issues That Make Suicide One of the Profession's Big Worries

A dog lies on an operating table in a veterinarian's clinic. (alexsokolov—Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A dog lies on an operating table in a veterinarian's clinic. alexsokolov—Getty Images/iStockphoto

BY MELISSA CHAN SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 6:00 AM EDT

Dr. Will McCauley had just finished his shift at a small Dallas animal clinic when he went home, fed his pet pot-bellied pig and then held a loaded handgun to his head.

 

The 33-year-old veterinarian was wracked with student debt and worn down by the daily demands at work, which included euthanizing dogs and cats and being vilified by pet owners for not meeting their expectations. “I was tired in this miserable state of mind,” he says. “It just drained me so much.” For reasons he attributes to either fear or hope, McCauley didn’t kill himself that summer day in 2016, and he quit his job later that week and stopped practicing.

 

“I knew I had to make a change,” McCauley says. “I was dead on the inside.”

 

The job challenges that more than 70,000 veterinarians in the U.S. face have led to disproportionately high suicide rates, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nearly 400 veterinarians died by suicide between 1979 and 2015, according to a CDC study published in January that analyzed more than 11,000 veterinarian death records in that timeframe. The study also found that female veterinarians are up to 3.5 times more likely to kill themselves than members of the general population. “It really can be classified as an epidemic in my profession,” says McCauley, who is now 36 and working for a trade association in Washington, D.C.

 

Suicide rates are increasing in nearly every demographic, age group and geographic area, and they are the highest they’ve been since World War II, according to federal data. While researchers have long known that doctors are more likely to die by suicide than the general population—partially due to issues like depression, anxiety and burnout—veterinarians face a set of unique stressors. Their patients can’t speak or tell them what’s wrong, much like babies can’t communicate with their doctors. But unlike pediatricians, veterinarians frequently find themselves having to euthanize a patient with a treatable injury or illness because its caretaker can’t afford the remedy, which might include costly surgeries. “You can say you’re going to be stoic and put it out of your mind and say it’s part of being a veterinarian,” says McCauley, an animal lover who has a dog and a cat in addition to his pig, “but the reality is over time, that weighs on you.”

 

Some vets are also tasked with putting down large groups of otherwise healthy animals due to overcrowding at shelters, although a recent New York Times analysis found pet euthanasia rates have drastically fallen in big cities in recent years, partially due to the decrease in the number of stray animals entering shelters as a result of successful spay and neutering campaigns.

 

"It's not all puppies and kittens and wonderful experiences. There's a lot of pain involved."

 

Dr. Nicole McArthur, a 46-year-old veterinarian in Rocklin, Calif., left the profession twice because of the agony she felt after killing an animal. “There was a period of time when I was essentially Dr. Death,” she says, adding that she’d sometimes have to put down three pets a day. “At the time, I was like, somebody is punishing me for something I’ve done in another life.” The dreams she had to help animals as an aspiring veterinarian quickly clashed with the harsh reality of having to take their lives even when they could have been surgically treated. She quit the field most recently in 2013 and returned in 2015. “We go through veterinary school with the idea that we’re going to save lives,” McArthur says. “To have to turn around and push a plunger is difficult.”

 

Another soul-crushing aspect of the job that most other health professionals don’t have to deal with, veterinarians say, is constantly being asked to perform services or give out medications for free and then being cyberbullied or harassed if they don’t. In 2018, Americans spent more than $72 billion on their pets, and more than $18 billion was for vet care, according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), a trade group. While some pet insurance plans may ease sudden expenses, only a small portion of pet owners opt to buy it. Pets live in nearly 85 million homes in the U.S., but only 2 million pets were insured in 2018, industry figures show. McCauley says he’d be asked to waive vet fees at least once a day. “When you’re not able to offer those free services and medications, you turn into the bad guy. They go online and they make you into the devil because you didn’t treat their cat for free,” he says. “It’s a horrible position that veterinarians are put in.” A 2014 survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) found one in five veterinarians were either cyberbullied by pet owners, who would write nasty reviews online or threaten their business, or knew a colleague who had been. “We have this tremendous fear that the mob is going to come after us online,” McArthur says.

 

There are also financial struggles, particularly for young people entering the field. Veterinary students in the U.S. graduated in 2018 with an average of $150,000 in debt, according to the AVMA. Yet data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the median annual wage for veterinarians in 2018 was $93,830, and starting salaries are significantly much lower. When Dr. Molly McAllister, 43, of Portland, Oregon, first entered the field in 2004, she took a veterinarian job for $22,000 a year with $90,000 in debt from just veterinary school. “I was really well-educated on how to take care of animals. I was not well-educated on how to take care of myself,” she says.

 

While there is never a single cause of suicide, the myriad of risk factors can add up. A survey of more than 11,000 U.S. veterinarians in 2014 found 9% had current serious psychological distress, 31% had experienced depressive episodes, and 17% had experienced suicidal ideation since leaving veterinary school. The data suggests nearly one in 10 U.S. veterinarians might suffer from serious psychological distress, yet only half are seeking help, says Dr. Jen Brandt, the AVMA’s director of wellbeing and diversity initiatives. Now, industry leaders are trying to change that.

 

On Thursday, during National Suicide Prevention Week, Banfield Pet Hospital, one of the nation’s largest employers of veterinary professionals, announced a new training and awareness program for its more than 17,000 workers as well as a plan to close more than 1,000 of its clinics nationwide for a two-hour workshop to discuss mental health by early next year. As part of the training, Banfield is launching a 30-minute online course that teaches employees how to recognize warning signs of suicide among colleagues and the best ways to help them. The training course, which begins with a self assessment, will be available free online for anyone in the veterinary industry by Jan. 6, 2020.

 

Lisa Stewart-Brown, a clinical social worker who developed the training, says she hopes the widespread discussions will help break the stigma associated with talking about mental health and offer at least one solution to a complex and multifaceted problem. “If we can teach people what it looks like when someone is in emotional distress, and we can teach them how to break through and connect with that person emotionally and compassionately and lead them to professional help, I know we will help,” she says. “It’s not all puppies and kittens and wonderful experiences. There’s a lot of pain involved.”

 

Banfield’s program is one of many being designed for struggling veterinarians and being implemented across veterinary hospitals, schools and communities nationwide. The AVMA also offers a similar free one-hour online training course that helps veterinarians identify and refer at-risk colleagues. Tens of thousands of veterinarians have also found solace in Facebook support groups. In 2014, McArthur, the California vet who struggled with euthanasia, founded Not One More Vet, an online veterinary support group, days after the suicide of Sophia Yin, a popular and pioneering veterinarian who specialized in animal behaviors. Friends and colleagues have said that Yin, 48, who lived in California, may have been overwhelmed with personal and financial struggles and may have had trouble maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Her death had a ripple effect in the veterinary world and sparked widespread discussions about mental health and self-care. “She was the epitome of what we all strive to be—professional, put together, well-respected, intelligent and seemingly happy,” McArthur says. “To find out that she felt there was no other escape was very sad and shocking to me.”

 

Not One More Vet now has more than 16,000 veterinarian members worldwide, mostly from the U.S., which McArthur says signals the growing need for help. “There is so much comfort in knowing that you are not alone,” she says.

 

If you or someone you know may be contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider.
Source:
https://time.com/5670965/veterinarian-suicide-help/

How Many People Who Die By Suicide First Kill Their Pets?

COVID-19 will result in more suicides. What will the impact be on pets?

Posted April 27, 2020 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

 

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THE BASICS

Suicide Risk Factors and Signs

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Photo by Christina Preiser/123RF

Source: Photo by Christina Preiser/123RF

On the morning of December 26, 2019, in response to reports of gunshots, the Bellingham, Washington police were called to the condo of Kevin and Lynn Heimsoth. They found Lynn Heimsoth, who was the principal of the local elementary school, dead. After killing his wife, Mr. Heimsoth shot himself, but he did not die. The police also found the bodies of Sukha, the therapy dog Mrs. Heimsoth brought to school for the children, and the family’s cat. Kevin Heimsoth was charged with murder and animal cruelty.

 

According to Florida State University psychologist Thomas Joiner, between 11 and 17 murder-suicides occur each week in the United States. What made the Bellingham shooting unusual is that two of the victims were animals. News accounts of people killing their pets before taking their own lives are rare.

 

However, an analysis I conducted suggests these incidents may be considerably more common than we might expect. And they raise important questions. For example, will the numbers increase due to COVID-19? And why do so many of these cases involve a murder as well as a suicide?

 

“Extended Suicide with Pets”

 

It is sometimes claimed that pets prevent suicides. But, as I recently pointed out (Do Pet Owners Have Lower Suicide Rates?), there is little evidence to support this idea. In a recent article in the journal Anthrozoos, a team of Australian researchers headed by Dr. Janette Young found that many older people say their pets give them a reason to live. The investigators interviewed older adults about their relationships with their companion animals. To their surprise, a third of the pet-owners spontaneously said their pets helped keep them from committing suicide. However, the researchers also pointed to the dark side of the pet-suicide connection, instances in which people kill their pets before taking their own lives.

 

Only two small studies have investigated this phenomenon. The first was a 2013 article in which Dr. Brian Cooke described seven reports in the American media in which people killed their dogs and then themselves. Cooke calls these incidents “extended suicides with a pet.” Several years later, the anthrozoologist James Oxley and his colleagues reported three additional cases in the UK.

 

Patterns of Extended Suicides Involving Pets

 

Combing through media reports is the only method that has been used to study suicides involving companion animals. Using Internet search engines, I located 30 articles in American newspapers published between 2010 and 2020 that reported incidents of extended suicide involving dogs or cats. When added to the seven incidents reported by Cooke, my database included 37 suicides with pets in the United States. With a sample this large, some patterns emerged.

 

The tragic statistics speak for themselves:

 

The Numbers. In all, 81 people died in the 37 cases. These included 28 men, 33 women, and 20 children. In addition, 74 dogs and three cats were killed.

The Victims. Unexpectedly, 80 percent of the cases were murder-suicides. In all these, the human-victim(s) were family members or long-term partners. In 85 percent of the murder-suicides, the victim(s) included a spouse or girlfriend. In 11 cases, one or more children were also murdered. Two men were killed by their wives, one man was killed by his sister, and two mothers were killed by their adult children.

Pet Species. In all 37 cases, a dog died. In three cases, the family cat was also killed. The most extreme incident involved an Ohio animal protectionist who ran an animal shelter. She killed herself and 32 small dogs by running her car in a closed garage. One dog survived.

The Sex and Age of Perpetrators. Seventy percent of the homicide-suicide cases were attributed to male perpetrators and 15 percent to women. In the other 15 percent of cases, the individual who was the perpetrator was not identified in the news report. The average age of the perpetrators was 47. The youngest was a 32-year-old mother suffering from post-partum depression. She killed her husband, their three-month-old child, and the family dog before turning the gun on herself. The oldest victims were a married couple. Both the husband and wife were 83 at the time of the shooting. They also killed their dog.

Methods. Guns were used in all but one of the murder-suicides. The exception was a case described by Cooke (2013) in which a man killed himself, his 16-year-old daughter, and their dog in a minivan using carbon monoxide poisoning. However, guns were used in only two of the seven extended-suicide-with-a-pet cases that did not include homicide. Non-gun methods included leaping off a bridge, driving a car into a lake, overdosing on pills, jumping in front of a train, and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Motives. The news reports gave little insight into why individuals chose to kill their pets and family members before they killed themselves. Two of the victims were reported as being depressed. In only two cases, both involving elderly couples, did it seem that the deaths could have been the result of a suicide pact.

Failed Attempts. In four cases, the suicides were botched. In three of these, the pet(s) died but not the person trying to commit suicide. The other case involved a carbon monoxide (car) suicide in which the deceased's roommate and his dog also died, apparently by accident.

What We Can Learn from These Cases?

 

Extended Suicides with Pets Fit a Pattern: According to a recent post by Psychology Today blogger Joni Johnston, the perpetrators of murder-suicides are usually men and the victims usually women. There are multiple victims in one of every four cases, and about 10 percent of these involve children under 16.

 

The cases I located involving pets fit this pattern exactly. In addition, perpetrators of murder-suicides tend to have a history of mental health problems, family violence, and adverse events in their lives. But, for the most part, the news reports I located gave little insight into the psychological states of the perpetrators.

 

People Really Do Think of Their Dogs As “Members of the Family.” Between 70 percent and 90 percent of Americans consider their pets family members. About 39 percent of the households in the US include dogs and 25 percent own a cat. But why were 95 percent of the animals in the cases dogs compared to only three cats? Further, in no case was a cat killed without the family dog also dying. The vastly skewed ratio of dogs to cats killed by their suicidal owners suggests that when it comes to extended suicides, dogs but not cats are family members.

 

The Tip of the Iceberg?

 

Each year, about 48,000 Americans died by suicide. Of these, only 0.5 percent are murder-suicides. This raises the question, why would 80 percent of suicides in which a pet was killed involve a homicide?

 

The reason for this huge disparity is selective media coverage. The vast majority of suicides in the US do not make the headlines, but murder-suicides do. Even the eight cases I located in which just the owner and a pet died had newsworthy components. For example, one involved a well-known country music star, and another was a death by train. And in the most recent case, the pet owner set his house on fire after shooting his dog.

 

In short, the statistics on extended-suicide-involving-a-pet are based on press reports. The implication is that these cases may reflect the tip of a large iceberg. If I am correct, it is likely that hundreds and perhaps thousands of pets are killed each year in suicides that do not make the headlines.

 

Finally, in a recent article in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers predicted a major increase in suicides due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, they say that the current confluence of social isolation, economic stress, decreased access to community and religious support, and barriers to mental health services are “a perfect storm” for suicide. The question is, how many pets will be collateral damage?

 

(Since the beginning of this year, there have been five press reports of suicides involving pets in the US. They resulted in the deaths of four men, five women, seven children, 10 dogs, and a cat.)

References

 

Young, J., Bowen-Salter, H., O’Dwyer, L., Stevens, K., Nottle, C., & Baker, A. (2020). A Qualitative Analysis of Pets as Suicide Protection for Older People. Anthrozoös, 33(2), 191-205.

 

Joiner, T. (2014). The perversion of virtue: Understanding murder-suicide. Oxford University Press.

 

Cooke, B. K. (2013). Extended suicide with a pet. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 41(3), 437-443.

 

Oxley, J. A., Montrose, V. T., & Feldman, M. D. (2011). Pets and human suicide. Leg Med, 18, 288-290.

 

Reger, M. A., Stanley, I. H., & Joiner, T. E. (2020). Suicide Mortality and Coronavirus Disease 2019—A Perfect Storm?. JAMA psychiatry.
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/202004/how-many-people-who-die-suicide-first-kill-their-pets

County discovers allies in suicide fight: animal shelters

MOLLY HARBARGER

December 25, 2018

The Washington County animal shelter is not often the first line of defense against suicide. But over the span of three months, shelter staff intervened with seven people who planned to kill themselves.

 

Most people who are considering suicide will say yes if asked if they plan to commit suicide. The problem is to know when to ask the question.

 

An unusual collaboration between the Washington County public health department and the medical examiner’s office has figured out a simple way to do that. It appears to be paying off.

 

Kimberly Repp, an epidemiologist, has earned national praise for a form she developed that death investigators fill out when they determine the cause of a suspicious death. The information provides more recent data about suicides in Washington County than state or federal reporting systems. The database is then used to identify trends that can strengthen Washington County’s suicide prevention services.

 

For instance, several death investigators in one month wrote that the subject gave up a pet to the shelter before dying.

 

Repp took that information to the animal shelter staff, volunteers and veterinarians, who agreed to be trained in identifying people who might want to hurt themselves and how to intervene.

 

Her model takes about two minutes to collect the data, and officials say it is saving lives.

 

A SEARCH FOR BETTER DATA

 

Five years ago, Repp was tasked with the annual statewide survey of health needs by each county.

 

Through that process, Washington County residents said again and again that suicide was one of their biggest concerns.

 

So Repp started to look at what she could glean from the state and national data to help suicide prevention efforts in the area. She was stymied.

 

Oregon is a founding member of the Violent Death Reporting System, a national effort to provide states with information about violent deaths -- which include suicides -- to help craft health policy and guide law enforcement. But by the time a local public health worker could access that information, it’s about 3 to 4 years old.

 

Vital statistics in death certificates only told Repp who is most likely to commit suicide, not why.

 

Plus, Washington County is not well-represented by state data, because its demographics tend to be superlative. The county has the most diverse population by race and ethnicity, the highest birth rate and the lowest death rate.

 

Repp needed better data -- a surprise in a state with among the highest suicide rates in the country.

 

A federal report released this summer said that, on average, two people a day die by suicide in Oregon. The rate increased by 17.8 people per 100,000 over the year before.

 

That puts Oregon with the 16th-highest suicide rate in the country, but the trend is national. All but one state had an increase in suicide deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

The Oregon Health Authority has prioritized suicide prevention, especially among children and young adults.

 

Public health officials agree that suicide is largely preventable. But Repp wanted to figure out how.

 

AN UNUSUAL PARTNERSHIP

 

The answer sat across the hall.

 

Charles Lovato has been a medicolegal death investigator for 32 years. He joined Washington County’s medical examiner’s office seven years ago.

 

His job, along with a team of death investigators, is to show up to the scene of any violent or suspicious death and figure out the likely cause of death.

 

To do so, he examines the body and on-scene evidence, interviews witnesses and tracks down friends and family. He then writes up a report with a narrative of what he thinks happened and submits that to the medical examiner.

 

Much of that information is scraped into the state and federal databases and then aggregated.

 

But Lovato’s work often extends beyond what shows up in the report. His job has traditionally been to evaluate all the information he collects in a binary way -- is it relevant to the cause of death or not? If not, then it usually doesn’t end up in any of the resulting data sets.

 

Repp wanted to know what wasn’t in there, so she approached the death investigation team and asked a question few people do -- could she tag along to some crime scenes?

 

Lovato was surprised that all that information that never makes it into reports could be useful beyond watercooler talk in the office. He knew that much of what he reports is used in state and national trend lines, but he had never worked with public health officials before and didn’t know what could make his data better.

 

Repp ended up at about 200 crime scenes to observe the process.

 

She worked with the death investigators for about 16 months to come up with the form. It collects much of the information death investigators already asked about, but makes sure those answers are logged systematically.

 

The state medical examiner signed off on the whole project.

 

Now, the county has four years of data on whether someone who died of suicide was the perpetrator or victim of domestic violence in the last 30 days before death or was abused as a child; whether that person experienced a crisis of mental, physical, financial or family health in the last two weeks; whether they struggled with legal, school or job problem at the time.

 

The right bottom corner of the form allows death investigators to write notes or observations that aren’t noted by the series of yes-or-no questions. That’s where the animal shelter trend appeared.

 

Repp also found that 25 percent of people who killed themselves had an eviction two weeks before their death. So she worked with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office to add the number of a suicide hotline to the eviction paperwork the county is legally required to deliver. In addition, a mental health worker now comes along to serve the paperwork.

 

The change took one meeting.

 

“These interventions don’t cost a lot of money, and they work,” Repp said. “We just had the right data to give them.”

 

SUCCESSES SHOWN SO FAR

 

Repp’s work has garnered national attention. In October, she won a prestigious award from the National Association of Medical Examiners.

 

Between the time she walked off the plane and got back to her Aloha office, she had 200 requests from states -- North Dakota and Utah -- or counties -- King in Washington and Humboldt in California -- interested in starting their own databases.

 

But Repp cautions that the form can only be useful if the local medical examiners’ office is committed, because that team is the one that must collect the data.

 

“It’s kind of a pressure release for us,” investigator Lovato said. “We’re always trying to look for things that you feel like you’re doing that feels a little more community oriented.”

 

The Multnomah County medical examiner’s office does not use the form, and Oregon’s state medical examiner said through a spokeswoman that she thinks Repp’s plan is great but will leave the decision up to each county whether it wants to incorporate the form into its work.

 

For those that do, Repp is willing to send a copy of Washington County’s form and database for a local jurisdiction to adapt. Many places have added opioid-related deaths to the data collection because many of the risk factors are the same.

 

Once it’s utilized, changes also require buy-in. She has reached out to low-budget motel staff in Washington County to ask if they would participate in suicide prevention training, because the data show people often check in to kill themselves there.

 

Repp said even front desk employees could help prevent a suicide if they will take the time.

 

“It doesn’t require some big production,” Repp said. “You just have to have the courage to ask the question.”

 

Because the data is local and real-time, it has also been embraced by Washington County’s suicide prevention council and other groups that can tailor their efforts to the needs of the local population. Many parts of Oregon will see that older white men are a prime demographic, which is true of Washington County as well, but the growing Latino population means that suicide prevention efforts must be culturally specific and in Spanish.

 

“It works because it’s local,” Repp said. And, because it’s relatively easy once the right people know who to ask. “I ask people all the time. They probably think I’m a weirdo. Which I am.”
Source: https://apnews.com/article/1810dcfad1b1495ebac53b218a1b2019

Extended suicide with a pet

Brian K Cooke 1

Affiliations expand

PMID: 24051598

Abstract

The combination of the killing of a pet and a suicide is a perplexing scenario that is largely unexplored in the literature. Many forensic psychiatrists and psychologists may be unaccustomed to considering the significance of the killing of a pet. The subject is important, however, because many people regard their pets as members of their family. A case is presented of a woman who killed her pet dog and herself by carbon monoxide poisoning. The purpose of this article is to provide an initial exploration of the topic of extended suicide with a pet. Forensic mental health evaluations may have a role in understanding the etiology of this event and in opining as to the culpability of individuals who attempt to or successfully kill a pet and then commit suicide. Because the scientific literature is lacking, there is a need to understand this act from a variety of perspectives. First, a social and anthropological perspective will be presented that summarizes the history of the practice of killing of one's pet, with a focus on the ancient Egyptians. A clinical context will examine what relationship animals have to mental illness. A vast body of existing scientific data showing the relevance of human attachment to pets suggests that conclusions from the phenomena of homicide-suicide and filicide-suicide are applicable to extended suicide with a pet. Finally, recommendations will be proposed for both clinical and forensic psychiatrists faced with similar cases.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24051598/

The weight of caring

High suicide rates among veterinarians prompt focus on challenges, resources

By Kelly Madrone

 

Animal Sheltering magazine Spring 2020

 

illustration of a crying woman vet looking at animals in kennels

Illustration by Rachel Stern/The HSUS

It was a busy day at the veterinary practice where Dr. Carrie Jurney worked. Jurney, a neurologist, had just been tapped to be the medical director of the practice when she got a call to come to the operating room and assist a team working to save the life of a dog. She recalls with stark clarity the moment the veterinarian’s hands just stopped moving. She looked up at Jurney and said, “If this dog dies, I’m quitting my job, I’m going home, and I’m going to kill myself.”

 

It was a life-changing moment for Jurney. She’d been aware the fellow veterinarian was struggling—she was in the midst of a divorce and wasn’t handling stress well—but had no idea the situation had become so overwhelming. Jurney and her colleagues ended up reaching out to the woman’s family and her therapist, and with support and over time, she’s doing much better. Still, in that experience something shifted for Jurney, who felt called to take a look at her own well-being. “Her speaking up let me notice that I was not doing well.”

 

In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control released a study that showed that a trend that had been documented previously is persisting—high suicide rates among veterinarians. According to data covering a 36-year period (1976-2015), male veterinarians are 2.1 times more likely to die by suicide than the overall population, and females are 3.5 times the national average.

 

While the proportion of female veterinarians who commit suicide has remained stable for nearly two decades, the actual number of deaths has gone up due to the increased ratio of female to male veterinarians—now more than 60 percent are women. An earlier study found that female veterinarians generally have higher rates of risk factors for suicide, including depression, suicidal ideation and previous attempts.

 

Of those veterinarians who took their lives, 37 percent used pharmaceutical poisoning—often the same or similar drugs used to euthanize animals—as the method; that’s 2.5 times higher than the number of non-vets. What’s behind these numbers, of course, are people and their stories.

 

Female vets are 3.5x as likely to die from suicide as the general population.

 

Costs and consequences

One of the highest-profile veterinarian suicides in recent years was that of Dr. Sophia Yin, a world-renowned veterinary behaviorist who died in 2014 at age 48. Yin’s work focused largely on gentle methods to modify complex behavior issues in dogs. Yin was widely recognized, but tens of thousands of U.S. veterinarians labor quietly in private practices and shelters, facing stressors that could prove life-threatening. As a result of her experiences in the clinical setting, Jurney became a founding board member of Not One More Vet, an organization created by veterinarian Dr. Nicole Arthur after Yin’s death drove home the magnitude of the stresses faced by many vets.

 

When you talk to veterinarians about stress, money comes up immediately. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, in 2016 the average veterinarian had student loan debt in the neighborhood of $143,000. Total costs for vet school can run as high as $400,000. Doctors at human practices may expect to pay that back relatively quickly, but veterinarians can expect it to take much longer. While an experienced veterinarian has the potential to earn a six-figure salary, according to national statistics, many barely cross that mark. According to job site ZipRecruiter, salaries can vary widely by state. While the average salary in New York is just under $105,000, North Carolina veterinarians average just over $73,000 in annual pay.

 

The average veterinarian student loan debt in 2016 was $143,000.

 

Another dimension of the financial equation is their clients’ own access to care. As Jurney explains, veterinarians don’t just deal with their own money concerns: “They’re also dealing with other people’s financial realities.” Over half of veterinarians say they experience cost-related issues daily or multiple times a day, says Dr. Barry Kipperman, board president of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association. Pet owners often think services for animals should cost less, or they simply don’t have the money to pay for a recommended treatment.

 

“It’s a metaphorical brick wall because it hurts veterinarians to have to deny care or to compromise the care of animals,” says Kipperman, who adds that this can create “moral stress.” As defined by Kipperman, moral stress is the result of being asked to do something that conflicts with your beliefs. In private practices, Jurney explains, this can include having to do euthanasias in cases where the veterinarian doesn’t believe it’s absolutely necessary.

 

In shelters, veterinarians are often working with space and resource constraints. They “have to do the best to maximize the adoption of animals in their care, but there are a limited number of cages,” says Kipperman.

 

One online course for veterinarians describes moral stress like this: When you have regular job stress and take a beach vacation, you come back feeling better. But when you have moral stress, you spend that week on the beach lying there wondering if you did the right thing and ruminating on your potential missteps.

 

There’s also the unavoidable reality that animals have shorter lifespans, says Dr. Michelle Salob, a staff veterinarian at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter in New Mexico.

 

For human physicians, “most of the time you see your patients cradle to grave,” she says. For a veterinarian, “it’s like if you had friends dying every day.” As Dr. Jennifer Steketee, veterinarian and executive director of the Santa Fe shelter, says plainly, “It’s exhausting.” And either by training or disposition, veterinarians in some cases may be especially ill-equipped to deal with such stresses.

 

a worried male vet opening an envelope that says past due

Illustration by Rachel Stern/The HSUS

Driven to help

Several veterinarians point to the general dispositions and motivations of many who choose a veterinary career as potential contributing factors to suicide. All say that more often than not, veterinarians are introverts who, by nature, generally process things internally and may not be as apt to turn outward for help.

 

Steketee says that in part, veterinarians may suffer from their own training, which is to largely not show their emotions. “It’s rare to find a vet curled up crying in the corner.”

 

Additionally, many veterinarians have type-A personalities with a strong drive to succeed, meaning they can have an even more difficult time processing the “failure” of not being able to save an animal. Veterinarians have a lower failure rate at suicide attempts, Salob explains, because of both an inherent drive toward efficiency and their training in euthanasia.

 

Then there are the often-unreasonable expectations placed on veterinarians—and that they might place on themselves. Salob, who has practiced at several shelters around the country, says she’s had experiences where “it never ended. You felt like you could never get ahead of what was happening. You felt guilty when you’d leave, even if you’d been there all day.” She says veterinarians would routinely check on animals multiple times before departing, then continue thinking about the animals after their shift.

 

The nurturer side of veterinarians can prompt them to try to take it all on, says Erin Wasson, a veterinary social worker at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, making it hard to maintain emotional equilibrium.

 

Sadly, most people outside the world of animal medicine have no idea about the tremendous pressure veterinarians are under and are more than willing to criticize them—and often publicly.

 

Male vets are 2.1x as likely to die from suicide as the general population.

 

Under attack

In 2014, Dr. Shirley Koshi, a veterinarian in the Bronx, New York, died by suicide after a long and very public custody battle over a sick cat who’d been brought to Koshi’s clinic after he was found in a local park. When the feline started to recover, a woman identifying herself as a rescuer showed up to claim him. Koshi refused to hand over the cat, triggering a bitter battle that included a lawsuit against the veterinarian and a demonstration outside her clinic.

 

Sadly, veterinary harassment is a familiar story. Sticker shock about the cost of veterinary care, the fact that a veterinarian couldn’t save their animal’s life or a decision by shelter staff to euthanize an animal suffering from a severe medical or behavioral issue, for example, can send irate owners or community members to social media, where they castigate the veterinarian (and often the staff, as well). Part of the challenge, many veterinarians agree, is that people don’t understand both the expense of veterinary medicine and the way it’s practiced—for example, due to the complexities inherent in practicing medicine, it’s impossible to always be certain how a particular test or procedure will come out or a medication will work.

 

One area that’s not frequently talked about is backbiting within the veterinary community. “Private-practice vets often don’t understand shelter medicine and herd medicine,” says Steketee. As a result, she says, “We are very hypercritical of each other’s work without knowing the background.”

 

Salob adds that it’s important for private-practice vets to understand how shelter medicine is practiced because “that’s where their patients are coming from.” Steketee says there’s sometimes a stigma around shelter veterinarians because there can be a perception that shelters “are where bad vets go.” That kind of criticism would be hard on anyone.

 

Additionally, people often have unrealistic expectations of veterinarians. “The public expects us to be saints,” always available and always willing to treat animals for a reduced rate, says Steketee. “I was once screamed at by a woman to come to her home to euthanize her old dog and bring the body back to the shelter and cremate it for free.”

 

Given all of these pressures and the fact that veterinarians are regularly confronted with animal suffering and death, says Salob, suicide “could start to become a somewhat rational-seeming idea.” Steketee agrees, saying it’s a complex issue with multiple causes, so solutions, too, must be multifaceted.

 

Some say veterinarian suicides could be limited by better controlling medications, such as instituting a multi-signature system to access euthanasia drugs. While such protocols could prove helpful, Salob points out that with their medical credentials, veterinarians wouldn’t have trouble procuring lethal medications by other means. A better question is how to provide resources for veterinarians so they never get to the point of contemplating death by suicide.

 

illustration of a smiling woman with a dog

Illustration by Rachel Stern/The HSUS

Changing culture

To that end, several organizations are implementing initiatives to support veterinarians, offering resources from education to meditation.

 

In addition to providing emergency financial assistance grants and links to crisis counseling, Not One More Vet is focused on shifting the landscape of the profession into one where veterinarians have better, broader tools to manage the demands of their careers. Says Jurney, “We can’t really get rid of moral stress, but we can prepare ourselves to deal with it better.” The organization also operates a popular private Facebook group for veterinarians where members can discuss challenges.

 

Jurney says that in addition to the kind of resilience and wellness training offered by Not One More Vet, veterinarians can help themselves by learning their “personal wellness barriers,” or the indicators that things have gone out of balance. For Jurney, a red flag is not sleeping well, but for a friend it might be that she’s sleeping too much.

 

“Your gut feeling is probably the most accurate measure you can have,” she says, but she encourages veterinarians to watch for mood swings and thinking or saying things like, “I can’t do this anymore” or “The world would be better without me.”

 

Wasson says boundaries are a critical issue.

 

“I’ve never come across a profession that was so boundary-less until I came into veterinary medicine,” she says. “Many vets provide care at the expense of their personal lives and their personal well-being without realizing that in the long term, it comes at the expense of patient care.”

 

Scheduling shorter work shifts could help reduce stress in the veterinary profession.

 

One way to draw boundaries, Wasson says, is for veterinarians to make sure they have a balanced schedule and a rich life outside of their shelter or practice. “If you’re working past the point of what’s sensible, responsible or sustainable to feel needed by your clients, you need to develop other relationships in your life,” says Wasson, who emphasizes that it’s critical that veterinarians have fulfilling relationships outside their workplace. “We can’t rely on work to give us everything we need, nor should we.”

 

For his part, Kipperman joined a team of other veterinarians concerned about gaps in training that contribute to moral stress for vets. The result is MightyVet, which offers free online training in resilience and coping, communication, financial management and other areas. The organization also offers the Mighty Mentor program, which matches veterinarians with seasoned professionals for peer-to-peer support. MightyVet’s future plans include working with schools to include these topics in basic veterinary education.

 

It will likely take some time for professional training and culture to change, but for veterinarians ready to enhance their coping skills, there are groups ready to help. Two things are clear: First, veterinary medicine is unlikely to become less stressful, but the impact of much of that stress can be mediated with the appropriate tools. And second, as colleagues and clients, those of us in the animal welfare field must remember that veterinarians are trying their best for animals every day, just as we are.

 

illustration of a depressed woman with a cat

Illustration by Rachel Stern/The HSUS

Taxing times for techs

It's not just veterinarians who contemplate suicide more often than the general public, says Dr. Carrie Jurney, founding board member of Not One More Vet. Veterinary technicians—whom Jurney calls “the backbone of our practice”—face tremendous pressures, as well. Though more specific research on techs needs to be done, ancillary data and anecdotal evidence point to them needing more and better coping resources.

 

According to Dr. Jennifer Steketee and Dr. Michelle Salob, who work at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter in New Mexico, techs often assist with the euthanasias that are so stressful for veterinarians, but without any of the decision-making capacity. Techs also are frequently responsible for disposing of animal bodies, which can also contribute to a feeling of helplessness.

 

Additionally, vet techs are often on the front lines of interacting with the public, animal control staff and others, as well as doing all of the initial prep work on animals who are frequently highly stressed.

 

Steketee says stressed-out animals create a level of secondary stress among the people who care for them, especially techs, who often provide the day-in, day-out animal care. Yet when there’s a happy ending, such as an adoption, the techs seldom get to take part in the celebration, and their efforts are rarely recognized in feelgood media stories. Add in the even lower pay rates for techs, and it’s a recipe for compounded stress.

 

illustration of a person looking up mental health websites on a laptop

Illustration by Rachel Stern/The HSUS

Resources

2018 CDC study

Animal Sheltering Online

Though stress among veterinarians and techs doesn’t all boil down to compassion fatigue, this page provides links to articles and resources that can help anyone working in animal welfare take care of themselves.

MightyVet

My Veterinary Life

The AVMA’s site is geared toward students and earlycareer veterinarians and provides financial education, career guidance and advice designed to foster overall wellness. Tools include a well-being assessment for new veterinarians.

NAVTA

The National Association of Veterinary Technicians provides webinars and other resources to support overall well-being.

Not One More Vet

Suicide Prevention Training

The AVMA’s suicide prevention (or “gatekeeper”) training helps participants learn how to identify those who may be at risk of attempting suicide.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline (Phone: 1-800-273-8255)

“Veterinarians’ Emotional Reactions and Coping Strategies for Adverse Events in Spay-Neuter Surgical Practice” by Sara C. White (Anthrozoös 31(1), 2018)

Source: https://humanepro.org/magazine/articles/weight-caring

Pets and mental health during National Suicide Prevention Month

 

Isiah is a neutered male terrier, American pit bull mix who is 2 yeas and 6 months old. For information about adoption, call the Tehama County Animal Care Center at (530) 527-3439. (Contributed)

Isiah is a neutered male terrier, American pit bull mix who is 2 yeas and 6 months old. For information about adoption, call the Tehama County Animal Care Center at (530) 527-3439. (Contributed)

By RONNIE CASEY |

PUBLISHED: September 23, 2022 at 4:10 p.m. | UPDATED: September 23, 2022 at 4:11 p.m.

In 2020, 45,979 Americans killed themselves, making suicide the 12th-leading cause of death in the United States, a fact many people do not like to talk about. In addition, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (https://www.samhsa.gov/), in that same year 12.2 million adults seriously thought about suicide. The suicide rates were higher among adults ages 25 to ...

Source: https://www.redbluffdailynews.com/2022/09/23/pets-and-mental-health-during-national-suicide-prevention-month/

 

HIDDEN STRUGGLES OF SHELTER WORKERS

George at The Animal Rescue League of Boston

As they have to witness animals’ suffering on a daily basis, animal shelter and rescue workers often experiece emotional exhaustion and stress that can lead to depression or even suicide.

 

By Sofiya Kryvych

 

A shelter worker’s job is not just happiness and joy. Forced to confront the painful realities of human cruelty and animal abuse, rescuers face emotional challenges and often prone to depression.

 

It takes so much more than just love. Working in animal shelter requires a full commitment to take care and support animals in need, and it means working ten-hour shifts five times a week cleaning, feeding, medicating, and walking the animals.

 

The hard work that you need to put in every day is just a part of it. What’s much more difficult is seeing your fussy friends come and go, get sick or die. Most people can’t handle the pressure and leave the profession.

 

It can be a difficult field for people to stay in, said Ellen Borreliz, a worker at the Animal Rescue League (ARL). It can definitely wear you down.

 

Workers’ dedication to improving animals’ lives and finding them new homes makes it even harder for them to see hurt or surrendered animals. It is nearly impossible to convey how difficult it is to find those animals in filthy unlivable conditions, said Mike DeFina, communications director for ARL. Taking care of them in the shelter and trying to gain their trust are definitely among the biggest challenges for shelter workers.

 

Borreliz has been working with animals all her life, taking care of them inside of the shelters, and outside — in the field, rescuing them from unlivable conditions.

 

 

Michael DeFina, media relations officer at The Animal Rescue League of Boston

When people think of an animal shelter they think of fluffy kittens and silly puppies, but there are things that can be really hard to see and really hard to experience.

There are so many challenging rescues that happen, Borreliz said. Seeing something as beautiful as a hawk or an eagle injured and knowing that they are not likely to survive the injury is very challenging

 

It’s difficult to see a dog coming out of hurtful, neglectful, abusive situation and come to a place where they are scared, said DeFina.

 

On the flip side, seeing those animals removed from their cages and seeing them happy later is incredibly rewarding. Borreliz said that even in the beginning of their journey to happiness, it is definitely easier to see those animals in the shelter, where she and other workers can take good care of them.

 

They’re here, they’re confined, they’re fed, she said. We know we’re doing the best thing for them here.

 

As shelter workers spend 10 hours a day with animals, , they build strong connections with them, which makes it even harder to see them getting sick or not getting adopted.

 

Seeing animals being placed in homes is the most wonderful part of the job, said Abbie Hunter, an animal care and adoption agent at ARL.

 

The Animal Rescue League is one of the biggest and oldest animal welfare organizations. They take and find homes for nearly 4,000 animals annually, and provide a range of all their services to around 18,000 animals. A big portion of it is medical care.

 

For many shelters, limited funding and lack of staff makes it impossible to save all animals in need. Some shelters have to perform euthanasia due to an animal’s sickness and the lack of resources to treat it, as well as limited space in the shelter. No matter how humanely this could be performed, it is hard to leave it all behind for the person making an injection.

 

It’s something we never want to do, said DeFina. I’ve been lucky that I’ve never actually had to do it or witness it.

 

Constantly confronting animals’ suffering and constantly worrying about their future puts a lot of stress on shelter workers. This often leads to emotional exhaustion and then takes a form of compassion fatigue, also called “vicarious traumatization.”

 

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed some reallly horryfying data in their report, Suicide in U.S. Workplaces. While the national suicide average for American workers is 1.5 per 1 million, it is 5.3 for animal rescue workers, a rate shared only by firefighters and police officers.

 

Some people are better than others at leaving it all behind, said Borreliz.

 

As emotionally difficult as it gets for animal rescuers, their love and dedication are their strongest motivation.

 

For them, it is a way to feel fulfilled and help the community. They save animals’ lives, while making a lot of sacrifices themselves. But for them it’s worth it. For them, it is much more than finding homes for animals. It is fighting the battle against abuse and cruelty.
Source:
https://web.northeastern.edu/wildboston/hidden-struggles-of-shelter-workers/

 

Teen Suicide Risk: What Parents Should Know

Which Kids Are At the Highest Risk for Suicide?

If you're worried about your child's risk for suicide, you are not alone.

 

In 2021, emergency departments across the U.S. noted a sharp rise in 12-to-17-year-olds needing treatment for suicidal thoughts or actions. And in a recent federal survey, more than 4 in 10 high school students reported feeling "persistently sad or hopeless," while 1 in 5 said they'd thought about suicide.

 

This article is also available in other languages. Click here to download.

Grief, isolation and fear caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may have been possible causes. But experts say the pressures that can lead young people to consider suicide have been rising for years.

 

Caring and informed family support can help kids cope when life feels overwhelming. You will feel better prepared to help your child when you know more about these suicide risk factors:

 

 

Previous suicide attempts

Young people who have already tried to take their lives face higher risks for suicide. Risks remain high for at least one year after a suicide attempt, so follow-up care is crucial. One study shows that the stigma and shame people feel after trying to end their lives may drive them to try again. After a suicide attempt, research also suggests that self-harm, such as cutting, places kids at higher risks for suicide in the following year.

 

Family experiences

There are many family issues that can affect youth suicide risks. For example, research shows that when one family member dies by suicide, others in the same family are more likely to take their own lives. Kids who live with abuse, violence, and other forms of trauma are also at greater risk of suicide. Separation from loved ones due to death, divorce, deployment, deportation, incarceration and other factors can cause mental health struggles that may contribute to suicide risks, as can the loss of stable housing. Studies also suggest that kids who are adopted and those who have spent time in foster care are more likely to be exposed to trauma and adversity; this can raise their risk for suicide.

 

Social pressures relating to sexual orientation or gender identity

Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight (heterosexual or cisgender) peers. However, sexual orientation and gender identity themselves are not directly linked to suicide. Rather, youth who identify as LGBTQ2S+ may experience discrimination, hostility and rejection, which can lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. One study found that when kids experience negative family and social reactions to coming out, this can raise suicide risks.

 

Racism

Racism, discrimination and related systemic bias are extremely harmful to mental health. Also, a history of systemic racism limits children's ability to access developmentally and culturally responsive mental health services in communities and schools. Racism and discrimination have led to significant differences in suicide risk and rates based on race and ethnicity. One study of Black and Latinx youth showed that even subtle discrimination is linked with suicidal thinking. As the American Psychological Association (APA) notes, race-related stress threatens the inner resources people need to cope with everyday life. The APA offers tools and insights for parents who, along with their kids, need strategies for overcoming the erosive effects of racism.

Depression

Adolescents who experience depression are more likely to attempt suicide. Parents may notice depression symptoms such as sadness, irritability, hopelessness, boredom, and the tendency to feel overwhelmed most or all the time. But some kids are good at hiding their feelings or don't know how to share them. Since 1 in every 5 adolescents and teens will face depression at some point, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that all kids aged 12 and over be screened for depression and suicide risks in yearly health checkups.

 

Other mental health conditions

Mood disorders, eating disorders and other psychiatric conditions can increase a child's risk of suicide. For example, young people with schizophrenia may hear voices (auditory hallucinations) that seem to be telling them to take their own lives, even though they do not want to die.

 

Alcohol and substance use

Substance use is a factor in roughly 1 in 3 youth suicides. Young people may intentionally take large doses of drugs as a way of ending their lives. Alcohol and drug use can also cause a break from reality, or psychotic episode, that causes hallucinations or delusions that lead to suicide.

 

Behavior problems

Young people who experience extreme anger or have a history of aggressive, impulsive behavior face higher suicide risks. Strong feelings themselves aren't the sole cause, since most children and teens experience intense emotions and moods. But youths who act out feelings in destructive ways may end their lives, especially if they are socially isolated, using drugs or alcohol, or consuming media in excessive, unhealthy ways.

 

Knowledge of other suicides, especially close to home

One study showed that when young people learn about the suicide of someone they know, they are more likely to consider or attempt suicide. Parents should pay close attention when suicides happen, especially when losses involve family members, friends, or school peers. Children and teens may need extra support, including professional counseling, to cope with strong feelings they are experiencing.

 

Easy access to guns

Firearms are the top cause of death for teens 15-19 years old who die by suicide. Even when guns are locked up, studies show that teens who live in homes with firearms are more likely to kill themselves than those in homes without guns. Teens, whose brains are still developing, tend to be more impulsive than adults. A momentary decision to attempt suicide with a gun often leaves no chance for rescue. The safest home for children and teens is one without guns. If guns are kept in the home, they should be stored safety: locked and unloaded, with ammunition stored separately in a locked location. Family members should make sure the child does not know the codes to the locks or the location of keys.

 

 

Bullying and cyberbullying

Kids who are bullied-and those who bully others-face higher risks of suicidal thoughts and actions. This is true whether bullying happens face-to-face or online (cyberbullying). A 2021 study found that adolescents who were bullied online were roughly 12 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than peers who were not.

 

How to provide the support young people need

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people 10 to 24 years old, so families should know the warning signs and be ready to help their children.

 

Know that it's OK to ask about suicide. If you are concerned about your child, ask them directly if they are thinking about suicide. Studies have shown that asking about suicide will not "put the idea into their head." In fact, it could open the door to an honest conversation about their mental health.

 

Make sure kids know it's OK to talk about suicide. Raise the topic in a calm, non-judgmental way to help them feel safe sharing their thoughts and feelings. Here are tips for opening the conversation.

 

Don't wait to seek professional help. If you see signs that your child might be considering suicide, get in touch with your family pediatrician right away to find mental health resources and support. If you need immediate support, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1(800) 273-TALK or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting "TALK" to 741741 in the United States or Canada.

 

Consider telehealth. Your child may find it easier to talk with health professionals from the comfort of home. For teens especially, online health appointments should take place in a private space, which may help them speak more freely. Telehealth visits are also a convenient way to make sure young people get the timely, ongoing support they need.

 

If you are unsure about what to do or need immediate support, call The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or text 'TALK" to 741741. Trained lifeline staff will help you figure out immediate steps to protect your child.
Source:
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/emotional-problems/Pages/Which-Kids-are-at-Highest-Risk-for-Suicide.aspx

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Suicides among veterinarians become a growing problem

By David Leffler

January 23, 2019 at 11:16 a.m. EST

 

Veterinarian Robin Stamey and Gracie, her toy poodle. “The only person I couldn’t explain my suicide to was my dog,” Stamey says. Recent findings reveal the suicide rate among veterinarians is higher than the national average. They also suggest that women in the field are more likely to take their own lives. (Charlotte Kesl for The Washington Post)

 

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Pushed to the brink by mounting debt, compassion fatigue and social media attacks from angry pet owners, veterinarians are committing suicide at rates higher than the general population, often killing themselves with drugs meant for their patients.

 

On a brisk fall evening in Elizabeth City, N.C., Robin Stamey sat in her bed and prepared to take her own life.

 

To her side lay a stack of goodbye letters Stamey had written to her loved ones, including her parents who lived hundreds of miles away. Gripping a catheter loaded with a deadly dose of Beuthanasia-D and Telazol, euthanizing agents the 46-year-old veterinarian had brought home from her nearby practice, she exhaled slowly and began to bid the world goodbye. But as she turned to look at Gracie, her apricot toy poodle, Stamey started to sob.

 

She couldn’t do it.

 

“The only person I couldn’t explain my suicide to was my dog, who was sitting there looking into my eyes,” Stamey recalled. “She’s the reason I’m still alive.”

 

The path to rock bottom was an unexpected one for Stamey. A chipper animal lover who went back to school at age 36 to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a veterinarian, she had previously worked in a few small clinics before eventually opening her own.

 

Pulling this off wasn’t easy; Stamey graduated from veterinary school with more than $180,000 in student debt. Her first vet jobs paid about $40,000 a year, forcing her to work long hours to scrape together enough money to get by.

 

These financial troubles were compounded by the strains of the job, which is known for taking immense emotional, physical and mental tolls on its professionals. But like many people who work in medicine, Stamey had always thought of herself as a caretaker and was afraid to ask for help. Instead, she swallowed her frustrations and soldiered on, ignoring the creeping depression that began to cast a shadow over her life and her work.

 

In 2007, everything fell apart. Burnt out from a near-decade of grueling work, Stamey was struck by crippling fatigue and painful internal swelling that doctors couldn’t explain.

 

This mystery ailment — diagnosed years later as Bartonellosis, or cat-scratch fever — stripped Stamey of the vigor that had once defined her, leaving her barely enough energy to crawl across her floor to feed her pet dogs, let alone run her practice.

 

Rumors that she was addicted to drugs and alcohol, fed by small-town gossip and social media exchanges between angry clients, spread through the community. Eventually, even friends turned on her.

 

“I didn’t lose an arm or a leg, so my illness and my withering mental health wasn’t real to them,” Stamey said, citing a tense phone conversation with an old friend as the moment that she decided to commit suicide. “I was suffering, alone, and didn’t know where to turn to for help. I just wanted it all to end.”

 

Stamey said she felt isolated in her pain at the time, but she has since learned a startling truth: Veterinarians are in the midst of a suicide epidemic of massive proportions.

 

On Jan. 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the first study to ever examine veterinarian mortality rates in America. The results were grim: Between 1979 and 2015, male and female veterinarians committed suicide between 2 to 3.5 times more often than the national average, respectively.

 

These findings not only reflect a higher suicide rate among all veterinarians but also suggest that women in the field are more likely to take their own lives, which starkly contrasts trends within the general population.

 

Considering the profession is becoming increasingly female-dominated (more than 60 percent of U.S. veterinarians and 80 percent of veterinary students are now female), the study’s authors suggested this trend could foreshadow even more veterinarian suicides in the years to come.

 

Additional research, including a 2015 CDC study that found 1 in 6 veterinarians have considered suicide, have shaken the veterinary world to its core, exposing a growing crisis that few knew of and others had sought to ignore.

 

Fatigue, burnout, debt

Stamey is among those who are standing up and sharing their stories, refusing to brush the problem aside.

 

“It was devastating to realize how many of us are hurting, but it’s more important to know the cards are finally on the table,” she said. “We can’t truly address this until we start being honest with ourselves and caring for one another.”

 

To grasp the extent of their desperation, you have to understand what it’s like to be a veterinarian today.

 

One of the most competitive medical fields — veterinary school acceptance rates are comparable with medical school acceptance rates, but prospective vets are often asked to complete more prerequisite undergraduate courses — it’s a profession that attracts intelligent, driven people who, above all else, want to help and treat animals.

 

As obvious as it is, that latter component is critical: People don’t become veterinarians for prestige, power or high pay. But diving into passion-driven professions leaves the door open for compassion fatigue and burnout, and the veterinary field is riddled with mental health hazards. Unsurprisingly, two of the largest factors at play are money and death.

 

Veterinarian school is costly. Recent studies conducted by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the industry’s largest nonprofit advocacy entity, show that the average veterinary student now graduates with $143,000 or more in debt; about 1 in 5 leave school with more than $200,000 to pay off. Veterinary salaries — which start at about $67,000 a year — aren’t keeping pace with rising tuition rates.

 

“Tuitions are going up, salaries are staying stagnant and the debt just compounds by the second. I’ve got friends who have graduated with anywhere from $100,000 to over $500,000 of debt,” said Lynn Green-Ivey, a San Antonio veterinarian who graduated from the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science. “Many of those people with those higher debt loads are facing an insurmountable monetary challenge. They will die with that debt and it’s really, really sad.”

 

The impact of these financial handicaps hits veterinarians far beyond their wallets. Pressed to pay off their debt while attempting to save money to buy homes, start families, or run their own practices, many vets find themselves routinely working well over 50 hours a week. They’re even forced to pick up second jobs in some cases, taking on overnight shifts at emergency clinics or helping out at rescue shelters.

 

“More often than not, you’ve got to work and work and work without a bathroom break and scarf your lunch down in three minutes or less just to keep up with the daily responsibilities,” Green-Ivey said. “The pressure to do more and to do better for your clients is constant and never-ending.”

 

Work-life imbalances

With little reprieve from a high-stress work environment that seldom provides an opportunity to take a break, eat lunch or go to the bathroom, many people’s work-life balances begin to suffer, Green-Ivey said. “We’re determined, passionate people who are used to putting our clients and our animals before ourselves. But these traits, which make us good doctors, are the same things that make us more susceptible to depression, anxiety and letting negative emotions chip away at us.”

 

Another key driver of this suicide crisis: Veterinarians are consistently asked to act as animal undertakers. Euthanizing animals can cause what a recent study referred to as ethical conflict and moral distress, which arises when vets are forced to put aside their expert opinions and accept pet owners’ decisions about if and when to put their animals down. More so, this proximity to death makes dying seem like a reasonable way to ease suffering.

 

These factors create a troubling set of circumstances, especially since vets routinely have access to controlled euthanasia drugs. If you’re armed with the knowledge of how to administer a quick, painless death and regularly experience trauma and stress, it’s clear how suicide can become an accessible option.

 

As this problem has become more publicly acknowledged, veterinarians have formed online support groups to discuss sensitive topics. It’s all about providing a sense of community to people who feel isolated, said Carrie Rountree, a vet tech who lives in Rock Hill, S.C.

 

Rountree created the Facebook group #TheFightingBluesForAmanda to honor her friend, Amanda Ryan, after Ryan killed herself in September. In less than two months, the group’s membership grew to nearly 5,000 people and includes veterinary professionals from around the world.

 

“Without online communities like this, I believe there would be increased risk and, consequently, even more tragic losses like Amanda’s,” Rountree said. “Now that we have tools like this to connect with people from all across the globe, this issue can no longer be ignored. Only through awareness can we create true change.”

 

Smaller groups, including a Facebook group Robin Stamey called “Veterinary Medicine: Staying Alive,” are now sprinkled throughout social media platforms.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/suicides-among-veterinarians-has-become-a-growing-problem/2019/01/18/0f58df7a-f35b-11e8-80d0-f7e1948d55f4_story.html

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MOTELS

6 Morbid Facts About People Dying In Hotel Rooms

By:

Jordan BreedingJordan Breeding

February 13, 2019

HO ACAT

At some point, we're all going to die; the question is mostly where. Will we quietly pass away at home, or in a hospital, or maybe in a ravine trampled by wildebeests? Well, statistically, a shocking number of you will kick the bucket in a hotel or motel room.

 

We talked to a couple of people who've seen their fair share of hotel corpses -- crime scene cleanup specialist Dale Cillian from BIOPRO and front desk manager Daniel Stransky -- to find out the likelihood that someone has been beheaded in the next hotel bed we crawl into. They said ...

 

6

Hotels Are A Magnet For Suicides And "Unnatural Deaths"

We're not saying that hotels are the Grim Reaper's all-you-can-eat buffet, but we're not not saying that, either.

 

First, for over a century, hotels have been what we guess you'd call a "popular" suicide destination. Dale Cillian (who has cleaned up after literally thousands of these suicides) believes hotels offer some "advantages" over dying at your house. "Sometimes people kill themselves in hotels because they're worried nobody will find the body. Other times suicide victims just don't want to be rude and mess up their house."

 

Of course, hotels also host plenty of guests going through a divorce or some other kind of upheaval. They seem to feature a mix of happy people on vacation and miserable people who wish they were at home. Add it all up, and suicide researchers regard hotels and motels as "lethal locations" -- people are over 19 times more likely to commit suicide in them, according to one study done in King County, Washington.

 

And that's just suicides. Several studies point to every conceivable type of unnatural deaths occurring in hotels and motels way more frequently than elsewhere. People are away from their families and support system, or out of town, or both. You get a higher rate of people smoking, using drugs, and/or going through some kind of mental breakdown. Guests can be killed by everything from gun murders to even, as Cillian once witnessed, "A guy with throat cancer had his throat rupture while he was in the hotel, and he bled out on the floor."

 

If nothing else, we're pretty sure these places are all haunted by now.

 

Related: 5 Creepy Things You Learn Cleaning Up The Scene Of A Murder

 

5

This Is Why Hotel Employees Are Always Stumbling Upon Corpses

Unless you work the Overlook Hotel winter shift, we wouldn't assume staffing the front desk included frequent brushes with death and horrific mutilation (but more on that in a moment). But if you ask Daniel Stransky, you'd be horribly wrong. "I've had employees discover bodies in rooms they were about to clean, and I've personally worked during multiple jumpings. We even had a woman die falling down the laundry chute."

 

And as shitty as death is for, you know, the people dying, it's immensely horrifying for employees. "I'd just recently helped a woman check in who wanted a room on the highest possible floor and on the front of the building," says Stransky, and you already can guess where this is going. "I'd assigned her something about halfway up, but she came back while I was on break and switched to a few floors shy of the top. Suddenly I heard a loud thud, almost like a car had hit a wall, and felt the area around me shake."

 

WARNING: The story only gets worse from here.

 

"I saw one of my maintenance guys inside the lobby, barely able to stand. His radio was turned up, and I heard nothing but yelling. The next 10-15 minutes were a circus -- guests in the lobby crowding around the door, cellphones out, security

Source: https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2587-6-morbid-facts-about-people-dying-in-hotel-rooms.html

trying to control the crowd, managers trying to clear guests from the lobby, cops showing up. When my boss went up with security and the police, she'd left a suitcase open full of her documents and things."

 

He went on to describe the aftermath of a body hitting pavement from 25 floors up, but we'll spare you the details (we'll just say that cars parked nearby had to be carefully cleaned). "I went home and just laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. I didn't know how to process what I saw, and it took me a while to fully get over it. Nothing really prepares you for something like that."

 

Yeah, not really the kind of stuff one imagines learning in a Hospitality 101 class.

 

Related: 5 Disturbing Things I Learned Working At A Suicide Hotline

 

4

Hotels Don't Exactly Want You To Know About This Stuff

Obviously, hotels know deaths are bad for business. (Stranksy and the other staff got strict "Don't talk to the press" instructions after their jumper made the news.) The main goal is to just clean up and get the room ready for guests as soon as possible. "I generally find a room is off-market for about a week or so, and then it's fair game again."

 

Cillian has similar experiences during cleanups: "Everything needs to be discreet. If I'm going to a high-end hotel, I already know I can't wear shirts with my company logo. I have to keep everything in black bags and then red bag it in the truck, and make sure nothing I bring is marked. Sometimes we're going in through back elevators and stuff."

 

Not that all guests are alarmed by the truth. That incident in which a woman died falling down a laundry chute? According to Stranksy, "There was a lot of controversy over whether she fell or was thrown down ... about a year later, we had a group of girls staying with us for a bachelorette party. They came down to the desk waiting for their Uber, and one girl walks up to me and randomly asks, 'Can I move to the room where the woman was murdered?' She went on a whole thing about what she'd read about it, and how she thought the boyfriend murdered her."

 

That's not all that uncommon. A few years ago, the Beverly Hilton "retired" the number 434, because it was the room where Whitney Houston died, and people came from all over the world demanding to sleep in the same bed she'd died in. Now, you may be wondering if they'd actually keep that mattress, but that really depends ...

 

Related: 5 Things You Learn About Rich People Working At A Nice Hotel

 

3

Cheaper Hotels Aren't Great About Cleaning Up

As you might assume, a nicer hotel is going to do a better job of cleaning up a dead body and its related fluids than a shitty motel will. What you might not realize is how those nice hotels pay for that cleanup. Cillian says it's charged directly to the deceased.

 

"Hotels take your credit card, so most of the time, I'm told they'll charge the credit card back. They're not too worried about cost, because they've got an open card and they'll just charge them." Seems like a really shitty thing to do ... until you realize what a difference that open card means for the actual cleaning.

 

"High-end hotels will usually try to replace anything that gets even a couple of spots of blood on them, but you really need to be careful of lower-end hotels. I knew a carpet cleaning company who kept getting calls from a cheap motel, and the owners wanted them to come in and try to use the carpet cleaning equipment to erase the bloodstains out of the carpet -- which is almost impossible -- instead of replacing it."

 

Well, that's just the carpet. It's not like they'd keep a bloody bed ...

 

"Even worse, sometimes somebody would get shot or stabbed in a bed, and the mattress would be soaked with blood, but they'd be hired to just try to suck the blood out of the mattress itself. If that didn't work, they'd just cover the stains with a mattress pad and call it a day."

Source: https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2587-6-morbid-facts-about-people-dying-in-hotel-rooms.html

Taking Steps to Help Prevent Suicides in Hotels

By Valerie Neff Newitt -July 21, 2014

On July 20, 1995, comic book writer George Caragonne checked into the Marriott Marquis in New York City intent on taking his own life. The despondent comic book writer asked a bellman if the Marquis was the highest building in the area. Assured that it was, he rode a glass elevator to the 45th floor and walked onto an atrium balcony. As he hoisted his leg over the railing, a housekeeper frantically called to him, “Get off of there!” He did.

 

Reports say Caragonne fell 500 feet before hitting a glass elevator shaft and landing at the base. The New York Daily News estimated Caragonne’s body traveled at 100 mph before it made landing. The report gave credit to a bellman who efficiently ushered guests away from the scene and to staffers who quickly used blankets to block the grizzly sight. “They handled this pretty professionally,” one bystander was quoted as saying.

 

Motels and hotels—from modest rooms to the most luxurious suites—are among the “lethal locations” described by suicide researcher Steven Stack, Ph.D., of Wayne State University, Detroit. “Lethal locations include any place, such as a hotel room, where there is no one around—like a loved one—to intervene and stop a suicide,” he explains. Even a resort full of vacationers, a high-rise bustling with business travelers, or a motel filled with weekend holiday-makers does not discourage a deadly sense of despair hidden behind a single locked door.

 

In recent years, architectural interest in soaring urban hotels with dizzying layer-cake-like atriums has provided an attractive feature for another sort of suicidal personality.

 

“When I was a property-level director of a large atrium hotel, I brought in a team of suicidologists to conduct staff training,” says Chad Callaghan, security consultant to AH&LA and founder of Premises Liability Consultants. “They say there are at least two types of people who commit suicide in hotels—those who are despondent, go to their room, and swallow pills or hang or shoot themselves, and a second type—those who are angry and want to sensationalize their deaths. They are the jumpers; we had two while I was at that atrium hotel.”

 

Some hotels have attracted more than their fair share. A rudimentary web search turns up multiple suicide jumps from the sky-high atrium of the New York Marriott Marquis. A rash of such deaths unfolded after the suicide of Caragonne, and according to Callaghan, dealing with the aftermath of multiple suicide jumpers became such a sore spot for the Times Square property that over $1 million was spent to construct artistic metal barriers just to prevent deadly leaps. After all, the “aftermath” is considerable. It includes sealing off affected areas, which can be highly conspicuous in a large lobby; dealing with police, coroner, bystanders, traumatized guests, and staff; rebating guests who were witnesses; calling for medical attention for anyone injured by the falling body; defending against the inevitable lawsuits to follow; controlling public relations fallout; and the actual cleaning of blood, bones, and associated biohazards.

And clearly, that is not a job for the housekeeping staff. “It’s time-consuming and costly when there are blood-borne pathogens,” Callaghan says. “We called on professional crime-scene cleaners. Thank God they exist.”

 

Neal Smither, owner of Crime Scene Cleaners Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, says his company performs suicide cleanups at hotel chains—his biggest clients—across the country. “The hotbed region—most active with hotel suicides—is the corridor running from Alabama up to the Virginias,” he says, adding that Las Vegas is also rife with in-hotel deaths.

“We’ve done every kind of hotel suicide you can imagine,” Smither says. “Hangings, firearms, knives, dope—there is not a manner of death I haven’t seen. I saw someone in a hotel who died by sulfuric acid—swallowed it. Last week I was called to a hotel where a man checked in just to blow his brains out. His new shotgun box was still on the bed. It took nine hours to scrub down the walls and repaint them.” Smither also has cleaned jump scenes. “With that kind of energy involved, a body explodes when it hits the floor,” he says.

 

While most large hotel chains have protocols in place for handling suicides, smaller hotels often do not. They would be wise to take a lesson from their larger counterparts, Smither says. “Hotels where I worked had a system in place: We recorded the event, called the police, called the coroner, removed the body, contracted for cleanup, and inventoried the person’s personal effects and turned them over to police. Employees were trained to simply back out of the room and call for security if they found a body. After all, it could be suicide, but it could also be homicide, a natural death, or someone just unconscious.”

 

‘A Juggling Act’

Efi Patt is a risk management consultant at iJet, a global operational, travel, risk management, and intelligence company that handles about 250 hotel assessments and risk audits every year. “When I look at security procedures and crisis management, I want to see how hotels balance between security and preventing suicide and other events. Hotels must take into account fire regulations and other safety procedures while maintaining a welcoming and open environment for the public. After all, this is the hospitality business. It’s a juggling act.”

 

So while it might seem both obvious and suicide-preventative to lock exits to high ledges or seal doors to some hallways, it may not be allowable under certain fire and safety codes.

 

What, then, can a hotel really do to prevent the tragedy of suicide?

 

“Plenty,” Patt says. “I’m talking about early detection of potentially problematic guests. They might come without a reservation, without luggage, and pay in cash; that’s a clear red flag of someone who might have an immediate agenda—it could be suicide. Watch for guests displaying signs of agitation or extreme nervousness. If something seems amiss with how guests interact, try to communicate with them and draw out more information—something important might surface.” (See “Signs of Concern” above for more indications of trouble.)

 

Asked for his top suicide prevention strategy, Callaghan suggests a physical alteration to hotel properties. “Make sure windows only open four inches, wide enough to allow a breath of fresh air but not wide enough for someone to jump out,” he says. “That would be my No. 1 tip.”

 

Patt also recommends blocking access to rooftops, machinery rooms, and storage areas of chemicals or sharps of any type. “Common sense should be the driver,” he says, reminding that evacuation routes and emergency stairwells must remain open. As for atrium safety, some hotels are installing sheer netting that does not restrict the view but does support the weight of a falling body.

 

Overall situational awareness is the key to prevention, Patt says. “There must be a mechanism within hotels for staff to recognize signs of distress or problems and report them to central positions—security manager, office manager, general manager. If several signs merit concern about a guest, call in the authorities. It should be a requirement to take note of potential danger and take action. A hotel’s main focus must be looking after the well-being of the guest—individually and collectively—not just the property.”

 

Whether for the purpose of industry excellence or humanitarian interest, properties must sharpen their skills at preventing and dealing with tragic events on site. In the end, it is not only a hallmark of good business and an assurance for optimum guest experience but also a strategy for preserving the most precious of commodities—life.

Source: https://lodgingmagazine.com/taking-steps-to-help-prevent-suicides-in-hotels/

https://lodgingmagazine.com/taking-steps-to-help-prevent-suicides-in-hotels/

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-commit-suicide-in-hotels

Hotel room suicide

Paul Zarkowski 1, David Avery

Affiliations expand

PMID: 17087636 DOI: 10.1521/suli.2006.36.5.578

Abstract

The objective of our research was to quantify the increased risk of suicide associated with registering in local hotels/motels. Medical examiner case files of suicide in King County, Washington, were reviewed for years 2002-2004. The incidence of suicide in local residents registering in local hotels/motels was 223/100,000 which is significantly greater than the incidence of suicide in the general population of King County (11.7/100,000 p < 0.0001). Hotel/motel guests from outside Washington had a significantly reduced incidence of suicide (3.9/100,000 p = 0.002). The study results suggest that there is an increased risk of suicide in local residents who register in local hotel rooms.

 

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3 Things That Will Surprise You about Hotel Room Deaths

Hotels are usually a place to go while having fun on vacation. However, they could also be the settings where someone passes away. Whether from suicide, murder, or dying from natural causes, far more people die while staying in a hotel room than you would think. When it happens, companies like Georgia Clean are called in to clean the mess left behind. We make sure the area is safe for the next person.

 

To protect their reputation, most hotels don’t talk about the deaths that have taken place on their property. However, as biohazard cleaners who have cleaned many hotel rooms throughout Georgia after someone has passed away, here are three things about hotel room deaths that will surprise you.

 

Deaths in hotel rooms happen far more often than you would think.

Though hotel room deaths are not an everyday occurrence for a business. They happen far more often than you would expect at most hotels. Sometimes people have a heart attack while traveling or pass away in their sleep. A heart attack while using the toilet is particularly common due to the potential strain on an already weakened heart. Others may use alcohol or drugs with the potential to overdose while being away from home and without their local support system.

 

Another common way for people to pass away in a hotel is through suicide or violent crime. To spare their friends and family from finding their body and having to clean up the mess left behind, some people planning to kill themselves will check into a hotel and commit the act there at that location. The hotel will then discover the death through the act itself (such as someone leaping from a building), family or friends calling the hotel to request a wellness check, the hotel staff entering the room for housekeeping purposes, the sound of a gunshot, or the odor coming from a room after several days.

 

Violent crimes such as murder, domestic abuse, or physical abuse in hotels are another leading reason why many people pass away. Whether it is a partner trying to escape an abuser and being found or an argument that turns deadly, the violence committed leaves behind a mess needing to be cleaned. Once the death is found, the hotel staff will alert local authorities who will take responsibility for the investigation. Still, the responsibility of the cleanup is left to hotel who are then legally obligated to make sure the room is fully cleaned and disinfected.

 

Most items in a hotel room are replaced

Depending on the type of death and the biohazards left behind, most items in the room will need to be replaced afterward. It’s necessary for the protection of future guests. A gunshot, for example, can spray blood throughout a large area. It can create holes in the wall, and tiny droplets can even move into the HVAC system. Porous items like sheets, towels, artwork, electronics, and wooden furniture may all need to be discarded.

 

Carpet, bathroom grout, and drywall may also need to be removed and replaced. Blood can soak into these building materials and soak into the layers underneath. When cleaning the space, clean-up crews must thoroughly check these layers so stains don’t spread. It also won’t attract insects, or cause health issues for other guests staying in the space. You don’t want to clean up spilled blood only to have it spread into the new carpet from the subfloor beneath or have a guest report an odor due to improper clean-up after a hotel room death. When all porous items have been discarded, the affected building layers are removed and repaired. We put new items in their place, and then the room can be rented out to other guests.

 

Some businesses don’t make sure the rooms are cleaned up properly

Most hotels, especially in Georgia, will make sure all issues are cleaned up properly. They hire licensed death cleanup professionals such as our staff at Georgia Clean. However, some motels and hotels cut corners by having people untrained in blood cleanup do the job or don’t clean up the entire mess.

 

Experienced professionals will know all the places where blood could go. Places such as in the air intake system, in gaps between the toilet and the floor. They will also have the powerful industrial-grade cleaners most hotels don’t keep on hand to fully use disinfect the area. Regular housekeeping staff should never clean up after these kinds of deaths in a hotel room. Doing so without the proper support, training, and experience can be emotionally and physically damaging. Such staff are also liable to miss areas blood has seeped into that can then damage the health of other guests and the hotel’s reputation.

 

At Georgia Clean, we make sure the entire room is cleaned and fully disinfected.

 

What is the process when someone dies in a hotel room?

When someone dies in a hotel room, the hotel staff typically call the police to report the death. Investigators then arrive to discern what happened and collect evidence. After the coroner removes the body, the police finish the investigation to find the cause of death. Once the police released the scene back to the property owner, it is then up to the hotel owner to clean up body fluids. They have to make sure all surfaces are disinfected and the environment safe for all future guests.

 

At Georgia Clean, we are here to protect the health of guests and the business of hotel owners. If you need help cleaning up after someone has passed away on your property, give us a call. Available 24-7, we are here whenever you need us.
Source: https://www.georgiaclean.com/3-things-that-will-surprise-you-about-hotel-room-deaths/

 

How to Tell if Someone Died in Your Hotel Room

By Matt Meltzer

Published on 6/21/2017 at 12:01 AM

 

Maid Cleans Murder Chalk Outline in Hotel Room

Jason Hoffman/Thrillist

Hotels don’t like to talk about it, but it’s not unheard-of for people check into hotels with the intention of permanently checking out. (Of life, you see.) Long after the body is gone, hotels go to great lengths to gently cover up the fact that someone died right there on the carpet/bed/balcony/toilet/mini-fridge. In high-profile cases, hotels may even go so far as to change room numbers -- see the Beverly Hilton after Whitney Houston’s death.

 

But sometimes you can suss out what the hotel would prefer you didn't -- that someone died in your very room. We asked a guy who cleans up after the recently deceased. He dished not only on why so many people die in hotels, but how the mess gets cleaned up, and how you might be able to tell if your room was once a crime scene.

 

Why do so many people die in hotels?

“People don’t want to inflict the kind of damage a suicide does on their homes, so they go to hotels,” says Chris Vegors, who owns Crime Scene Cleaners Northwest in Seattle, and who for years was contracted by a large hotel chain to clean up, yep, its crime scenes. “A lot would also rather their family not find them. And it happens a lot more than you think.”

 

How much more? Hotels obviously aren’t ecstatic to advertise that information, and only one real study has been done on the frequency of hotel suicides. That study, done in Seattle in the early 2000s, found that locals who registered at Seattle-area hotels were about 20 times more likely to commit suicide than folks who were at home.

 

And though taking suicide statistics in Seattle and applying them to the whole country might sound a little like extrapolating skin cancer data from Hawaii, hotel deaths are certainly not exclusive to the dreary northwest.

 

Very Creepy Old Motel

Duckeesue/shutterstock

What happens after someone dies in a room?

Once the police have CSI-ed the place, a crime scene cleaning crew comes in to assess the damage. Usually they throw away anything with a permeable surface: sheets, blankets, mattresses, wooden tables, lamp shades, or anything else that would get wet if you threw water at it. So don’t worry that you’re sleeping on a dead man’s mattress.

 

Most electronics also get tossed, since small amounts of blood and other matter can get into the devices’ crevasses, making them nothing you’d want to plug in and turn on. “You can’t let them heat up and start to stink,” Vegors says. “Hotels have stockpiles of the exact same stuff to replace it.”

 

Carpet gets ripped out too, as does any permeable linoleum or other flooring. Headboards, artwork, also gone. Pretty much all that’s left are the bathroom fixtures, the walls, the ceiling, and maybe some metal furniture. At which point everything gets sanitized and cleaned with solutions not available to the general public, like synthesized bovine enzymatic cleaner (the stuff they use to sanitize slaughterhouses) or industrial-strength hydrogen peroxide.

 

Once that’s done, someone has to sand down or fill holes in walls that may have caught a bullet or other debris. Wallpaper gets torn down and replaced, or the room is repainted.

 

“Everything has to basically look like new construction,” Vegors says. “If the cleaning is done right, you’ll probably never be able to tell if someone died in your hotel room. We do it right, but not everyone does.”

 

And if they don’t, they might leave behind these signs that your room played host to some foul play.

 

Old plain hotel room

karamysh/Shutterstock

What are the signs someone might have died?

 

There’s an odd bump in the wall. Feel for an uneven surface where the wall was filled in and not sanded down properly. Of course, holes in the wall could be caused by a number of things -- a clumsy furniture installer, rowdy kids, The Who. A good rule of thumb is to look at the size of the bump. “If it’s smaller than a quarter,” Vegors says, “it’s probably a bullet hole.”

 

The room is only partially renovated. If you see, say, half the room with what appears to be fresh wallpaper, and another half with stuff that looks a little faded, chances are something happened in there that required only part of it to be taken down. But it’s not just wallpaper. “If half the room is done, and the bed and nightstands are completely new, but the kitchenette and bathroom are older-looking stuff, that means cleaners went in, did something in the living area, and didn’t do the turn on the rest of the hotel room,” Vegors says.

 

The A/C unit smells awful. If you’re in a hotel room with a wall A/C unit, Vegors says it’s the most commonly missed item by crime scene cleaners, and often has human remains stuck in the vents after a death. The blood and other matter seeps through the vents and into the wiring, and the air blowing out of it will smell like decomposing flesh. Most guests are likely to mistake it for garbage, and write it off as “stinky A/C” in a two-star TripAdvisor review. But not many things can make a wall unit smell that bad.

 

Hanging Do Not Disturb Sign On Door

Michal Staniewski/Shutterstock

There are flies in the light fixtures. “I take all the fixtures down and either toss them or sanitize them,” says Vegors. “But not everyone thinks that thoroughly. So if you look up at those, that’s where you’ll see some interesting shit.” People who kill themselves may be in a room for a few days after they die, especially in longer-stay hotels where they’ve pre-paid. Flies begin to infest the room and crawl up in the light fixtures, either getting stuck there or leaving waste behind. This isn’t likely to happen in nicer hotels, but if you’re in the kind of place where light fixtures aren’t regularly cleaned, dead flies could be a tipoff.

 

The ceiling is noticeably different than the rest of the hotel. Ideally, a crime scene cleaner can scrape whatever needs to be scraped off the ceiling, sanitize the ceiling, and fill it in to look new. Since imperfections aren’t as easily noticed on the ceiling as a wall, it’s typically an easier fix. But if you look up and see a janky ceiling, it can a sign of a particularly nasty death.

 

Of course, none of these things definitively mean someone expired in your room. A family of chainsmokers could have fumigated the place. Or the hotel might have been due for an overhaul anyway. Or the ceiling had a bad leak. But since death in hotel rooms isn’t completely unusual, it’s worth it to scan for the signs. Because the hotel sure isn’t going to tell you.

 

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Matt Meltzer is a contributing writer to Thrillist who's seriously reconsidering every hotel he ever stayed in with a wall unit AC. Follow him on Instagram @meltrez1.
Source: https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/how-to-tell-if-someone-died-in-your-hotel-room

 

SUICIDES IN HOTELS (QUICK WAYS TO FIND SOLUTIONS)

Wendy by Wendy May 27, 2022in Educational, News, Tips, Travel

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Suicide is the 2nd highest cause of death among people aged 10 – 34 The hospitality industry sadly, is affected by this upsetting statistic as it attracts a wide range of individuals and businesses from different parts of the world while offering both services and products to its customers.

Of course, hotels also host plenty of guests going through personal upheaval as well as happy ones. Hence it also serves as a haven for unnoticed suicide missions.

Hotels and motel rooms of all sizes have a suicide problem, from modest to luxurious ones are among ”lethal locations”. ‘Lethal locations’ include any place within the hotel such as a hotel room where there is no one around- like a loved one to intervene or stop a suicide.

Resorts and high bustling environments for relaxation do not discourage the deadly sense of despair hidden behind a single locked door.

One begins to wonder why hotels attract such or why some hotels attract more than their fair share. The aftermath of suicide in hotels is a mixture of reactions ranging from traumatised guests and staff to unusually bizarre attractions on social media (you will be surprised to find people who find suicide an attractive subject).

Part of the issues i.e dealing with police, rebating guests who were witnesses and calling for medical attention for anyone affected by the fallen body (in the case of jumping). Cleaning of blood, bones and associated biohazards and inevitable lawsuits which follow is worrisome.

The hospitality industry has to look for ways to avoid suicides and handle them while taking into account that the business has to maintain a welcoming and open environment.

So while it might seem obvious and suicide-preventative to lock exits to high ledges or seal doors to some hallways, it may not be allowable under particular fire and safety codes. The question is why do people choose hotels and other hospitality outlets for this act?

REASONS WHY HOTEL IS A LETHAL LOCATION FOR SUICIDE

The hotel provides the privacy needed for such activities as there are fewer chances someone will stop the individual.

According to research, it is said that people kill themselves because they are worried nobody will find their bodies.

Some people choose hotels because they do not want their loved ones broken by finding their bodies (they still get broken knowing they committed suicide).

 

What then can a hotel do to prevent the tragedy of suicide? Below are tips on how to prevent suicide in hotels.

HOW TO PREVENT SUICIDE IN HOTELS

Make sure windows are only open four inches, wide enough to allow a breath of fresh air but not wide enough for someone to jump out.

Blocking access to rooftops, machinery rooms and storage areas of chemicals or sharp objects.

Hotels should create mechanisms for staff to recognise signs of distress or problems and report them to security, manager or necessary authorities.

The hospitality industry is doing everything possible to prevent or stop suicides, but it must be noted that the industry is in the business of service and people. Hence, it is an uphill task to identify these signs of distress in individuals while optimising the delivery of good service as required in the industry.

Let us create more awareness about mental health and show love to the people around us. Many individuals are going through a mental breakdown, and there is not much awareness in society about mental health.

Also, let us get more educated about mental health, and get empowered with the knowledge on how to support and help people going through a mental breakdown.

Increasing non-judgemental support for mental health issues will benefit suiciders, and their loved ones, staff and the public in this ongoing battle that affects an unacceptably high percentage of humanity.

Source: https://airgist.com/suicides-in-hotels-quick-ways-to-find-solutions/

 

Motel Has No Duty to Prevent Guest’s Suicide, Massachusetts Appeals Court Rules

By Andrew G. Simpson | September 6, 2022

 

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A motel and its employees have no duty to prevent a guest’s suicide even when family members warn that the guest is a suicide risk.

 

A Massachusetts Court of Appeals has ruled that while innkeepers may have an affirmative duty to maintain security and protect guests from some harms such as assaults by intruders or other guests, they have no affirmative duty to rescue, including to prevent a guest’s suicide.

 

Michael C. Bonafini took his life while he was a guest in a Motel 6. In a wrongful death action against the motel corporation and several employees, his family contended that the employees should have called the police to conduct a wellness check after they refused multiple requests by his mother and wife for his room number so they could help him because they said he was a suicide risk.

 

“Although we recognize that the defendants were informed by Bonafini’s family of their concerns for him, this –- without more — is not enough to have triggered a duty on the defendants to rescue, as tragic as the consequences of inaction were,” the appeals court wrote.

 

The appeals court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the suit, noting that “even assuming that Massachusetts would recognize a duty on the part of an innkeeper to take reasonable steps to prevent a guest’s suicide, no such duty arose in the circumstances alleged here.”

 

According to court documents, Bonafini checked into the Motel 6 in Chicopee on March 5, 2015. Shortly afterwards, Bonafini began communicating with family members, and they became aware that he was at risk of attempting to kill himself. The next day, Bonafini’s mother went to the motel to try to help him. While there, the mother told a service representative at the motel that Bonafini was at risk of suicide and needed assistance. The employee would not give the mother Bonafini’s room number, but he did call Bonafini’s room. Bonafini said he did not wish to be disturbed.

 

Bonafini’s mother returned to the motel the following day and again asked for Bonafini’s room number, saying that Bonafini was at risk of suicide and that she needed his room number to assist him. A motel employee again refused to provide the room number, but placed a call to Bonafini in his room. This time, Bonafini answered the call but immediately hung up.

 

The following morning, Bonafini’s wife went to the motel to try to address his well-being. Motel employees refused to assist Bonafini’s wife or to contact Bonafini before his noon checkout time. At noon, the manager of the motel and two other motel employees forcibly entered Bonafini’s room and discovered that he had hanged himself.

 

In its lawsuit, the family asked the court, as a matter of first impression, to impose on innkeepers a duty to prevent their guests from suicide.

 

The court noted that past rulings have found that innkeepers may in certain circumstances have an affirmative duty to take reasonable steps to prevent certain kinds of harm. They have a duty to maintain adequate security system to prevent a guest from being stabbed by intruder. They have a duty to take reasonable care of the premises. They have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect a guest from an assault by another guest or a fire set by an arsonist.

 

But, the court continued, Massachusetts courts – as well as appellate courts in other states– have not yet imposed on innkeepers an affirmative duty to rescue, including to prevent a guest’s suicide.

 

The court added that while such a duty has been found in cases of other relationships — such as universities and students, hospitals and patients, and prisons and inmates — those are not the same as innkeeper and guest relationships. “Such relationships differ from those of an innkeeper to its guests because they have a custodial quality, involve a form of dependency or protection, and are of longer duration than is typical of hotel guests.”

 

Also, in the other cases, the duty is triggered only by actual knowledge of either the person’s recent suicide attempt, or the person’s stated plans or intentions to commit suicide, the court stressed.

 

In Bonafaini’s situation, the court noted that motel employees were not alleged to have had actual knowledge that Bonafini had recently attempted suicide, or that he had “stated plans or intentions to commit suicide.” Instead, all that is alleged is that Bonafini’s mother and wife informed employees that Bonafini was at risk of suicide, and asked for his room number so they could assist him. They did not tell the employees that Bonafini had stated an intention or plan to commit suicide or that he had recently attempted suicide.

 

Also, Bonafini himself is not alleged to have told motel employees anything other than that he wished not to be disturbed or that they themselves observed anything about Bonafini that would suggest he had suicidal intentions.
Source: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2022/09/06/683821.htm

 

“Hotel backyard”: hoteliers’ perspectives on hotel suicides

Burçin Kirlar-CanORCID Icon &Mehmet ErtasORCID Icon

Pages 59-70 | Published online: 29 Sep 2022

Download citation https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2023.2129728 CrossMark LogoCrossMark

 

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the perspectives of hotel employees and managers on hotel suicide based on the opportunity theory. Using an exploratory qualitative research design to gain insights into undesirable events in hotels, the study examines the opinions, attitudes, and management skills of hoteliers in preventing suicide and coping with the after-effects. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with sixteen hoteliers in Denizli, Türkiye. Data collection included scenarios consisting of newspaper articles about hotel suicide cases. The findings demonstrated that hotels mostly meet their legal obligations, such as taking registration, checking identity, and sending instant identity reports to the police station. However, they rarely take preventive measures against suicidal events.

 

KEYWORDS: Hotel suicideopportunity theorydeviant behaviourDenizliTürkiye

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

 

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Burçin Kirlar-Can

Burçin Kirlar-Can, Ph.D., received a BA degree in Tour Guiding and an MS in Turkish Art from Ege University, Türkiye. She also obtained MS and Ph.D. degrees in Tourism Management from Dokuz Eylul University, Türkiye. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Tourism, Pamukkale University, Türkiye. Her research areas include tourist behavior, crisis management and risk perception.

Mehmet Ertas

Mehmet Ertas, Ph.D., received a BA degree in Hospitality Management from Cukurova University, Türkiye; and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Tourism Management from Dokuz Eylul University, Türkiye. He is now affiliated with the Faculty of Tourism as an Assistant Professor at Pamukkale University, Türkiye. His main research interests focus on crisis management, tourism recreation, motorcycle users and tourism marketing.

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Lethal Locations: An Application of Opportunity Theory to Motel Suicide, a Research Note

Wasserman, Ira M.; Stack, Steven

Death Studies, v32 n8 p757-767 Sep 2008

Location of suicide is a neglected area in suicidology, but is important because location is related to the presence of motivated rescuers who can prevent suicides. The present study analyzes the predictors of suicide in a location that is apt to be free of motivated rescuers: the motel room. Data from the files of a medical examiner in a Midwestern city included 1457 suicides, of which 27 took place in motel rooms. Predictor variables include demographic characteristics and psychosocial stressors associated with the suicides. An exploratory multivariate logistic regression model found four independent predictors of motel suicide. Conditions elevating the odds of motel room suicide were divorce (odds ratio = 6.0), out of county residence (OR = 14.4), hanging as a suicide method (OR = 3.0), and substance abuse (OR = 2.6). The model explained 24% of the variance in location of suicide. Opportunity theory is utilized to explain why location influences the probability of a suicide. (Contains 3 tables.)

Descriptors: Substance Abuse, Suicide, Predictor Variables, Housing, Probability, Stress Variables, Multivariate Analysis, Divorce, Place of Residence, Models

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Source: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ808413

Motel deaths may be murder-suicide

 

By THE SUN | thesun@dfmdev.com |

January 7, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.

Whittier police Sunday were investigating what appeared to be an abduction and murder-suicide involving a man who was supposed to report to prison later this month.

 

The bodies of a man and a woman, found in a second-floor room at the Whittier Inn Motel about 11:20 a.m. Saturday, were turned over to the Coroner’s Office.

 

Police said the man used a handgun to kill the woman before killing himself, the Whittier Daily News reported.

 

“Based on the scene, it does appear that there might have been some type of struggle, Whittier police Officer Diana Salazar told Fox Channel 11 News.

 

Salazar said the bodies were those of a man from Chino and a woman from Upland.

 

Police were sent to the room when the couple failed to check out on time. A handgun was found in the room, according to Channel 11.

 

A motel employee identified the man who checked in as Curtis “Keno” Harris, 34. He said he checked the man’s identification before renting him the $55-a-

 

night room, the newspaper reported.

 

He identified the woman as Monica Thomas-Harris.

 

Her family feared she may have been abducted by her estranged husband who, after being arrested in December, was due to begin serving a 16-month prison term this month for having kidnapped her, according to reports.

 

On Nov. 16, Harris took her from a West Covina park to a hotel where he handcuffed her and held her captive, then released her only to abduct her the next day.
Source: https://www.sbsun.com/2008/01/07/motel-deaths-may-be-murder-suicide/

 
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