(Casper) 16 years ago, Lance Neiberger considered ending his life when his son hanged himself. This oil engineer from Wyoming is now leading a fierce fight against the spread of suicides that is ravaging his western American state.
Posted at 7:18 a.m.
“I was in my office when my wife called me. She said to me “come back immediately”, “recalls the septuagenarian.
“I jumped in my car and drove home,” says this man with a lively look. “My daughter was in our garden, on her knees, screaming. »
Lyle, 17, had just killed himself.
“I knew he was struggling with depression, I knew he was having trouble dealing with certain things,” his father says today. “I wasn’t there for my son when he needed me the most,” he laments.
In order to overcome his own suicidal thoughts, Casper townsman Lance Neiberger joins a suicide prevention group – a scourge that ravages Wyoming more than any other US state.
“Cowboy mentality”
In Wyoming, known to be the least populated state in America, the suicide rate is twice as high as in the rest of the country.
Here, the towns are more than 150 km apart, the weather more than inhospitable and two thirds of adults have a weapon in their home – all factors pointed out by experts to explain why people end their lives there. life more than elsewhere.
Add to that a “cowboy mentality”, a direct legacy of the hostility of the region, “where you have to get up when you fall, where you shouldn’t cry when you’re a man”, describes Lance Neiberger.
Wyoming also has an overwhelmingly white population – statistically more prone to suicide. In 2020, 70% of Americans who committed suicide were white men.
The dozen ambulances parked in front of his home, the noise of the body bag… For 16 years, Lance Neiberger has relived the death of his son daily through his interventions in schools, centers and fairs in the region, in the grip of this deep crisis. of mental health.
“We have a problem, it is high time to solve it,” he warns.
Montana, Idaho and neighboring Colorado are also ravaged by this scourge. So much so that the entire region, crossed by the Rocky Mountains, has inherited the sinister nickname of “Suicide Belt” – the “diagonal of suicide”.
In 2018, a hotline was launched in Wyoming, to connect those who need help with health professionals familiar with the issues that are so specific to the region. Last July, a national emergency number, 988, was also created to strengthen the system.
But this aid is insufficient.
” The bottom ”
“We have very rural communities, and in these communities, mental health care, and even physical health care, is sorely lacking,” says Lance Neiberger.
“In this town alone, we don’t have enough psychiatrists to prescribe drugs,” agrees Jason Whitmire, who joined the same prevention group after “hit rock bottom.”
This Wyoming native geologist, who suffers from bipolar disorder, has come close to suicide twice.
The first time, in 2013, “I was 45 minutes from home, I had planned to go home and use a gun,” recalls the 30-year-old father of two young children.
On the highway, a “click”.
“I collapsed, I called my relatives to tell them that I was in danger,” he says in a calm voice.
But four years later, Jason Whitmire tries again to end his life.
After years of “roller coaster”, he assures that it is now beneficial for him to share his testimony. Alongside Lance Neiberger, he has been preparing a series of events in recent weeks that the group is organizing in September, the month of suicide prevention in the United States.
“I’m hopeful it might be useful to someone.” »