Experts say suicide can be prevented
By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Reporter
Oklahoma has the eighth-highest suicide rate in the nation and some of those numbers can be traced to Piedmont.
Piedmont residents Stephanie Cherry and Angie Almond are hosting a suicide prevention training in cooperation with Mental Health Association Oklahoma (MHAOK). The “Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR)” training will be held from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday at the Piedmont United Methodist Church, 2525 Piedmont Road N.
Both Cherry and Almond have experienced the loss of someone by suicide. Cherry said her son’s friend committed suicide two years ago.
“My son was the one who found him,” she said. “I know how much I have struggled with this. I’m just now able to talk about it without crying. It’s taken a lot of prayer, counseling, and Christ.”
Two people committed suicide earlier this year in Piedmont.
“Angie and I came to work the next day, after the second one we said we just see a need for the community right now, for prevention to help someone in need,” Cherry said. “We didn’t know where to go. Angie made a call to someone she knew. It’s just blossomed from there.”
Spokesman for MHAOK Matt Gleason said the training empowers friends and loved ones to intervene.
“A lot of people may look at these QPR trainings like, this is going to be depressing but actually it gives people hope that we can save lives from suicide,” Gleason said.
When a person shows signs of suicide, Gleason people are afraid to ask them the big question.
“Are you thinking about suicide,” Gleason said. “They’re afraid to ask that question, sometimes because they think they’re putting the thought into that person’s head, but when you ask that question it jolts them. They say, ‘you know what I have been thinking about it.’ The training teaches people what to do next.”
QPR will teach participants how to connect a suicidal person to services and how to support them through the process of recovery. The training also educates people about the triggers for suicide such as mental health, homelessness, and incarceration.
“People don’t get help because they are stigmatized,” Gleason said. “You would never blame people who get cancer. You wouldn’t say, ‘the cancer people’ but we say all the time, ‘the mentally ill’ or ‘the felons.’ This campaign is all about challenging Oklahomans to see people for who they are rather than horribly stigmatizing labels.”
Cherry and Almond expect a large turnout.
“Stephanie and Angie have gone so far above and beyond,” Gleason said. “They told me today they’ve already gotten a lot of people who have responded that they are coming. They are planning on doing another one in September because they’ve gotten such a huge response. For such a small community to react like that it’s indicative that we need to do it every city in America. Our battle cry is ‘one (suicide) is too many.’”
