Trooper foils apparent dual suicide attempt

MAT-SU -- On April 20 Lonnie Swanson noticed something amiss in the West Fork Campground on the Taylor Highway near Forty Mile River. Swanson is a Fish and Wildlife Protection officer with the Alaska State Troopers. He was on patrol that day and there was only one vehicle in the campground, which wasn't unusual for an April Sunday in the Interior. The vehicle itself was unremarkable. It was a truck with a camper shell.

But Swanson also noticed something else. A rubber hose had been connected to the truck's exhaust pipe and routed into the camper shell. The engine wasn't running at the time.

Swanson found two people in the vehicle who insisted they were just camping. They were both Alaska residents. She was in her mid-30s and he in his mid-40s. The couple had been drinking, and he was intoxicated, according to a trooper press release issued after the incident.

Swanson called troopers in Tok for assistance. They found two notes inside the truck that troopers say are proof Swanson interrupted a double-suicide attempt. The vehicle's occupants were taken to Fairbanks and admitted into Fairbanks Memorial Hospital's mental health unit. Both were discharged two days later, but that's all of the information the hospital can disclose. Swanson also said he wasn't comfortable granting an interview about the incident. There were no charges filed against either individual, he said.

What happened that day is uncommon but not unheard of, according to Swanson's supervisor, Lt. Gary Folger of AST.

"This is an unusual thing to find. Particularly on that part of the Taylor Highway, which is closed this time of year," Folger said. "Most years there is too much snow for anybody to drive in that far."

Swanson was outside of radio range, according to Folger. Swanson had to assess the situation, make sure things were OK and drive to a hill in order to be within a repeater's range to call for an additional trooper.

The law allows police officers and troopers to take someone into custody and place them into in-patient care if the officer believes they are a danger to themselves or others. Folger said the first time he used that section of law he was patrolling alone, just like Swanson was last month.

"That one, he was actually asleep on the seat and I pulled him out. He was groggy, but I remember him being upset with me," Folger said adding that an ambulance arrived before the groggy man was able to do much with his anger.

It's rare for someone to be grabbed by the police and put into a hospital, but mental health professionals say that sort of intervention can be appropriate. Mental health care needs to be applied in appropriate doses. Those doses can range from simply listening to a person's troubles to placing them in a hospital so they won't hurt themselves.

"If someone is struggling and displays acute symptoms then the goal is to provide that person with a safe environment," Mark Haines-Simeon, director of clinical services at Mat-Su Community Mental Health Services said.

"If they have acute symptoms, they may be unable to provide for themselves and participate in their own self-care … In this case, [Swanson] provided an external support that internally these people couldn't provide for themselves," Haines-Simeon said.

Haines-Simeon did not treat either of the patients who Swanson discovered last month. In general, he said, double suicides or double-suicide attempts happen most often among two people who are in an exclusive primary relationship. One that doesn't allow for supportive relationships outside the couple.

Like many mental health problems, suicidal tendencies are evenly spread across the population, affecting different social groups, incomes and ages. There are few reliable stereotypes, Haines-Simeon said.

"The reality is that in terms of age you could be talking teens, young adults, middle-aged and elderly. At any point in time, you could deem somebody as being high risk," he said.

Symptoms for people with acute depression can be behavioral or physical. Behavioral patterns such a isolation or impulsiveness are a warning sign of depression, as are physical symptoms such as insomnia or chronic pain.

"Underlying all of these factors, what you see is a chronic sense of hopelessness," Haines-Simeon said. "Hopelessness has more to do with the future then the present. When a person doesn't have a since of hope that the future is going to be any different from the present, that just undermines an individual's sense of valuing or even desiring self preservation."

As a person comes out of a hospital environment their external support group, friends and family, as well as professionals such as clergy or social workers, remain an important part of the individual's care.

"They step down to a less acute level of care," Haines-Simeon said. "The role of family and friends is really critical. We are hard-wired as relational beings. A critical piece of recovering from depression or suicidal thought is to be able to re-engage in those critical relationships."