Lifestyle

Suicide Causes Far More Oakland County Deaths Than Murder

July 30, 2015, 7:05 AM

In the third of a three-part series entitled “Suicide: The epidemic nobody wants to talk about," The Oakland Press finds that suicide in Oakland County is five times more prevalent than homicides.

Monica Drake writes:

Last year, 167 Oakland County residents lost their lives to suicide, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office — compared to 30 homicides that year.

In the past four years, the highest number of suicides in the county was in 2012, when 173 people lost their lives to suicide. During that winter, four members of Lake Orion and Oxford Community Schools took their lives.

The report mentions Shane Hrischuk, an Oxford Middle School eighth-grader. He played baseball and basketball, ran track and mentored sixth graders, the paper reports.

He died on Jan. 26, 2012 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Shane’s mom, Michelle Aitken-Hrischuk tells The Press: “Over the years, kids have died from car accidents or cancer, and they’re usually honored in their yearbook. But Shane wasn’t honored because he died from suicide.”

“I think a misconception of suicide is that they are bad people, which isn’t true. Their brain is not functioning right.”


Read more:  The Oakland Press


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