Suicide in college

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Most common survivable method is drugs and pills. Slashing wrists is more problematic, but maybe doable if the slashee doesn't hit the artery.

In my day (1970s), students would not go on medical leave AFAIK. They'd have gone into counseling. Nowadays would probably be different. The requirements would depend on the college and perhaps the state it's in, assuming you're talking about the USA.

I've heard of cases where the parents are notified, but I don't think it always happens.

Gun in college in my day wouldn't be a problem for your story. Nowadays, it would need some serious backstory for how the character found it.

You might want to take a look at trumpetology's pieces in the Memoir section of SYW. They include suicide attempts and aftermath.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

What is a suicide method that is generally survivable? I was considering cutting (wrists).

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I'm not really sure about this, but I'd imagine wrist slitting (this does risk slicing important tendons) and hanging to be the most survivable, depending on how quickly someone intervenes. I of course bow to those with more medical knowledge than myself.

What are the consequences of a suicide attempt in a college setting? Does the student get put on medical leave, or is he just assigned to a mental health counselor, or what?

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Depends on the university. Any suicide attemptee is put on a 72 hour hold, but what follows afterwards is up to the psychiatrist.

If the student is above 18, would parents be notified?

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Yes. My univeristy made me fill out about 15464634 emergency contact forms before beginning. Unless the student has stated otherwise, parents as next of kin will always be contacted.

If you are in college in the U.S., how believable would it be for a student to get his hands on a gun? I was also considering my MC finding the gun before the attempt actually happens and confronting the other character about it.

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It's America. Anyone of legal age without a record can buy a firearm. It's not difficult, and as this tragedy proves, it happens. It is illegal on some campuses (but not all. Double check if you're using a real one) to bring weapons onto campus, and this is cause for immediate expulsion, if not arrest. (Mine will do both on the spot for guns.)

A.P.M. said:

Hello all,

I'm writing a story in a college setting, and one of my characters is going to attempt to kill himself. The MC will discover him and save his life.

Few questions:

What is a suicide method that is generally survivable? I was considering cutting (wrists).

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This link contains comparisons of various different methods and their success rates, as well as discussions on the most effective methods.

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING APPLIES. Please do not click that link if you're in a vulnerable state. (This is a general warning for lurkers, it's not directly aimed at you A.P.M.)

Cutting is a very common one with a low success rate.

A.P.M. said:

Hello all,

I'm writing a story in a college setting, and one of my characters is going to attempt to kill himself. The MC will discover him and save his life.

Few questions:

What is a suicide method that is generally survivable? I was considering cutting (wrists).

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Is it a real attempt to commit suicide or is it a cry for help? If the former, then cutting the wrists might work, especially, if the person doesn't know how to do that right. If it is a cry for help, then pills would be a better idea.

What are the consequences of a suicide attempt in a college setting? Does the student get put on medical leave, or is he just assigned to a mental health counselor, or what?

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It depends on where and who would be informed.

If the student is above 18, would parents be notified?

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It depends on where and who would be informed.

If you are in college in the U.S., how believable would it be for a student to get his hands on a gun? I was also considering my MC finding the gun before the attempt actually happens and confronting the other character about it.

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I am not presently a student in the U.S., but guns were available if one really wanted one. I was acquainted with a rough crowd, but there were very few firearms.

Pills are the most survivable, but like anything else, only if caught in time. When it comes to pills, ipecac or stomach pumping will occur to get it out. Same with certain types of drugs, there are medical procedures to clear out the system.

A gun could technically be survivable if they mess up the shot. Hanging is harder because there are only minutes to find the person in time to save them. Jumping is usually not survivable, but there are some cases of jumping from bridges and only sustaining broken bones and such.

There is also the strategy of getting extremely drunk and driving, which is usually survivable for the person attempting it and can create potential for drama depth if the attempt takes a victim instead (I think this was in a book I read a long while ago, but I don't remember the title).

A suicide attempt can be covered up in a college setting if the hospital doesn't share the information with the school, but if they do (depends on the situation), then some schools require after-attempt counseling. While at the hospital, the student will be required to stay (like mentioned, though I've heard of only 48 or less hours, I've known people let out in as little as 12 hours), it's up to the psychiatrist that comes to give the approval for the student to go on their way; they have the power to send the student to a mental institution if they believe the individual will continue to attempt to take their life.

Also, if drugs, overdose, or pills are used as the attempt, the psychiatrist (or school) may suggest/demand that drug rehabilitation is necessary and could be In-Patient or Out-Patient depending on what the psychiatrist thinks. The main thing to keep in mind is that the hospital's psychiatrist that comes to do the intake/outtake analysis has all the power for what happens to the student and what the school will recommend. There is potential for corruption in this role. The school will almost always listen to the psychiatrist recommendations and some require such recommendations to be made so that they know whether to put the student under mental health counseling or not (however, schools aren't /always/ notified about attempts).

If the student is above 18, the parents are not notified unless the student requests it, if it is a basic hospital and the student is still capable of speaking (otherwise, the parent would have to be on the student's medical forms as to 'who to contact' if they cannot speak).

A student could probably get a gun fairly easy, DEPENDING on the State they live in and the permit laws that exist around it. However, it isn't a stretch of an imagination that one of their friends, or older relatives, has a gun and they could swipe it. But I mean... Wal-Mart sells them in most areas.

One of my friend's roommates attempted suicide. I believe he did it by hanging, luckily he didn't achieve his goals. My friend said one day he got a knock on the door and when he opened it the police came running in and went to the roommate's room where he some how had managed to call 9-11 for help. My friend said that he had to go see a counselor.

A friend of a friend's roommate did something similar. I don't think the girl attempted it, but said something to the effect that sometimes she was suicidal, and I believe she HAD to go and see a counselor or they would kick her out.

I'm from TN and getting your hand on a gun isn't really that hard, espiecally if you are 18+ which most college age kids are. You can't have it in your dorm, but you also can't have alcohol, drugs, pets....and kids sneak that in all the time. I can imagine that you can sneak in a handgun easily--which is really scary.

Most college dorms do room checks, but where I go, they give you 48 hours notice and the RAs aren't allowed to open closet, cabinet, refrigerator dorms. What the point is then if they have to do all of this, I don't know, because kids stash things when they first get the notice.

King Neptune said:

Is it a real attempt to commit suicide or is it a cry for help? If the former, then cutting the wrists might work, especially, if the person doesn't know how to do that right. If it is a cry for help, then pills would be a better idea.

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Cutting is rarely a successful method, because it is mostly NOT a true suicide attempt, but a way for people to translate overwhelming psychological pain into more manageable physical pain. Those people will often have scars from multiple previous cutting episodes.

Not that suicide by cutting doesn't happen, just to say, that if you use cutting, you may very well be opening a can of worms you don't wish to. OTOH, perhaps you do.

Most, but definitely not all, college attempts are cries for help, someone being overwhelmed by circumstance they do not yet have the resources or maturity to handle well. Of being "out on their own" for the first time, of being taken advantage of, that sort of thing.

I would agree that pills is a method that is both survivable, but associated with many tricks and turns that could make the outcome a source of tension over a longer period of time. If that is what you want to do.

HTH
CB

CoolBlue said:

Cutting is rarely a successful method, because it is mostly NOT a true suicide attempt, but a way for people to translate overwhelming psychological pain into more manageable physical pain. Those people will often have scars from multiple previous cutting episodes.

Not that suicide by cutting doesn't happen, just to say, that if you use cutting, you may very well be opening a can of worms you don't wish to. OTOH, perhaps you do.

Most, but definitely not all, college attempts are cries for help, someone being overwhelmed by circumstance they do not yet have the resources or maturity to handle well. Of being "out on their own" for the first time, of being taken advantage of, that sort of thing.

I would agree that pills is a method that is both survivable, but associated with many tricks and turns that could make the outcome a source of tension over a longer period of time. If that is what you want to do.

HTH
CB

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It is not difficult to commit suicide by cutting wrists, but it depends on where and how one cuts. But you are right that most wrist cuttings "are mostly NOT a true suicide attempts".

I have known a number of people who attempted suicide in some way.

King Neptune said:

It is not difficult to commit suicide by cutting wrists
...
I have known a number of people who attempted suicide in some way.

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I'd be interested to know how many successful suicides you have seen that have cut their wrists.

I deal with suicide attempts on a daily basis. I never see the successful ones, so my view may be skewed. But it is rare to see a "saved" suicide-attempt-by-cutting that would have been successful had they not been found.

CB

CoolBlue said:

I'd be interested to know how many successful suicides you have seen that have cut their wrists.

I deal with suicide attempts on a daily basis. I never see the successful ones, so my view may be skewed. But it is rare to see a "saved" suicide-attempt-by-cutting that would have been successful had they not been found.

CB

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A. That question is irrelevant.

If one wishes to commit suicide by slashing one's wrists, then cut longitudinally along the artery where one finds a pulse. If one wishes only to attract attention, then one cuts across the wrist. The ones that you see cut across the wrists, didn't they?

King Neptune said:

A. That question is irrelevant.

If one wishes to commit suicide by slashing one's wrists, then cut longitudinally along the artery where one finds a pulse. If one wishes only to attract attention, then one cuts across the wrist. The ones that you see cut across the wrists, didn't they?

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KN: I did not mean to ruffle your feathers asking you that question. The point I was trying to make is that it not common, nor easy, to kill yourself by slashing your wrists, at least in my experience. Cutting your wrists is a particularly difficult way to kill yourself, the fiction trope notwithstanding. About 1 in 25 of all suicide attempts are successful.

Here are some facts I managed to find while researching this response:

In this study the 1998 methods of completed suicide are analyzed for Canadians 10 and older. (See p14, table 1). You will see that the number for cutting/piercing instruments is 1.6%. This includes more than only slashing wrists, of course.

Cutting into an artery is not easy. For one thing they are richly innervated. It is very painful, and most arteries are also associated with nerves, which complicates things if they are hit as well.

This table discusses the "Agony" factor, which I would think is one of the reasons why this method is not that common, ranking 28th out of the 28 methods ranked.

The agony factor for cutting your wrists is 71. Compare that to 5.5 for a shot to the head, and 95 for self-immolation.

For the most part, Canada and the USA are culturally similar, so these translate over. However, even between 2 countries so closely linked, there are significant differences.

For example, you will see here that in males, about 3 times as many in the USA kill themselves with firearms vs in Canada.

Of course things are also different by gender and age.

You will also see how varied things are for other cultures in the same table.

Cutting into arteries is not even mentioned here, as it is relatively rare.

HTH
CB

A note on the pills - it's common in part because it requires very little planning ahead (unlike, say, acquiring a gun - as easy as it may be, there's still waiting periods and having to go get one and if your student isn't already part of pro-gun culture, that will involve some research). The flip side to that is a large number of suicide-by-pills attempts involve "open the medicine cabinet and take a bottle of something" - even though not all medicines will cause problems with an overdose, and the problems vary widely. So it's possible for a suicide attempt to be "take a whole bottle of X" where X just makes you throw it all up and feel miserable for hours afterward - and if it doesn't require hospitalization, it's more possible for the student to cover it up and not get legally-mandated help.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I do know one "successful" suicide by cutting: a doctor who slashed his throat.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I worked at a Canadian college, so I think the experience is somewhat translatable to a U.S. College. Hopefully there is some useful information somewhere in my rambling.

A.P.M. said:

If the student is above 18, would parents be notified?

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This is a little tough to answer, because I don't know who is doing the notifying. Is it someone from the college? In my experience, colleges don't disclose any personal information to anyone, including parents. I.e. if an parent called asking about a students grades, the college would not disclose this information. College students are adults so parents are not typically taken into account.

Now, the exception would be, if the student had filled out an emergency contact form and, because this was a medical emergency, the parents would likely be be the one who the student put as their emergency contact.

I can't speak for who the hospital would contact, but keep in mind that they probably don't legally have the right to disclose too much medical information to anyone if their patient is over 18.

A.P.M. said:

What are the consequences of a suicide attempt in a college setting? Does the student get put on medical leave, or is he just assigned to a mental health counselor, or what?

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Again, college students are adults. This isn't high school, so whatever help a student chooses to access is really up to them. They can't be forced to do anything and they typically won't be babysat by anyone at the college. Unless someone were to inform someone at the college, they wouldn't even Every Canadian college has a student services department (quick search shows something similar in the U.S.) that includes free counseling, but it is up to the student to choose to access these services.

The exception to this would be if the student lived in residence. In my experience, residence is the department that is most likely to 'babysit' a student if they attempted suicide. In our residence we had a kind of agreement (I can't remember what we called them) that students would be required to sign if they became a danger to themselves or others. If they broke the contract, they were kicked out of residence.

Typically these agreements were used because of dangerous binge drinking. I remember a few students who had to sign agreements that stipulated that they would not drink anymore after being taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. I don't think that I ever encountered this, but I can imagine a similar contract being used after a suicide that stipulates that a student must attend counseling.

Now, if a student was found with a gun in residence, they would be kicked out in a heartbeat and probably expelled from the school for bringing a gun onto the campus. Keep in mind, that's just my experience with Canadian colleges.

I think the best way to find the answers you're looking for is by calling up a college and ask what services they have available for students who are at risk for suicide. You don't really have to say why. I found this random student services page that might help:

http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/current_students/what_to_do_if_you_need_help.php

I remember that while I was in college (~10 years ago), there was a Great Big Deal going on revolving around alcohol poisoning. I don't remember the details of the actual incident, but it something along the lines of "student goes to party, gets drunk, gets taken to the ER, is mad that parents were notified." The kerfluffle was over whether the hospital/university/police/whomever should be notifying parents or just sending the ER bill to the student and allowing the student the choice of paying it themselves (this was a college where plenty of students had a couple thousand in pocket money just laying around . . .). I don't know what the conclusion was, but I think it was an issue percolating at other colleges than mine.

I know alcohol poisoning isn't quite the same thing, but I suspect the parental notification aspect might be the same.

Attempted overdose on homeopathic pills.

A.P.M. said:

If you are in college in the U.S., how believable would it be for a student to get his hands on a gun?

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Where in the US? Some states it's normal for a student to own a gun, though many don't allow guns on campus. Age is a factor, but many partents have purchased firearms for their sons/daughters as a self defense option in college, especially daughters. In some states, carrying on campus is allowed, in others it's a decision of each college and in others it's forbidden by law.

Jeff

Males tend to use more aggressive methods than females in determined suicide attempts. Hanging is quite common, but as most people are ignorant/inexperienced they tend to strangle rather than break their own necks. That gives the rescuer a window of opportunity.

Siri Kirpal said:

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I do know one "successful" suicide by cutting: a doctor who slashed his throat.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

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Pretty much anything is survivable. My ex's job used to be sitting in the hospital rooms of failed suicide attempts and supervising them to make sure they didn't finish the job.

He sat with many folks who'd shot themselves in the head at various angles and survived. Some were missing pieces of their face, like an eyesocket or a cheekbone, but they were alive.

One of his coworkers told me the one that haunted him most was a guy that slashed his throat from ear to ear. He tried to describe what it felt like looking at the stitches, and couldn't. I have no idea what circumstances that person could have slashed their throat under that would lead to them actually surviving, but they did.