Dealing with suicide was the topic of discussion when the Overton County Health Council met last week.

The council met for its quarterly meeting at the Livingston-Overton County Chamber of Commerce.

The council, which is made up of local health professionals and organizations, met and discussed a rather difficult topic: suicide.

Upper Cumberland Regional Director of the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network and Overton County native Michael Anderson presented horrifying statistics to the council as a means to facing the issue head-on.

Anderson, being professionally affected by suicide twice in his lifetime, brought the statistics to the attention of the council with care.

“I don’t do statistics for theatrics. I do it because I think a lot of people just don’t know how important the topic of suicide is for people here in Tennessee–specifically here in the Upper Cumberland,” he said. “I know what its like to lose someone to suicide, and I don’t just stand here coldly stating statistics.”

He went on to explain how suicide is compared to plane crashes nationally.

According to Anderson, the reason it is compared to plane crashes is because of the number of people lost daily to suicide. “What if a plane crashed everyday?” is the question in comparison.

The tragedy of a plane crashing everyday with lives lost would be close to the number of suicides daily nationwide.

“Every time there is a plane crash, there is a lot of press coverage. Any time a plane goes down, it is so rare and the risk of the loss of life is higher and the media pays attention to it,” he explained. “In the field of suicide, we compare the statistics because of the number of suicides we have, and it is like a plane crash every day.”

In the 2017 Centers for Disease Control report for the top 10 causes of death in America, between the ages of 10 and 35, suicide is the second leading cause of death.

Anderson said, “Here in Tennessee, we’re higher than the national average.”

His report shows that 17 percent of Tennessean’s lives are lost to suicide.

“We lose more than three Tennesseans every day to sucide,” he informed.

“There were 1,084 that died in motor vehicle accidents, but when we look at the number of suicides, there were 1,163 Tennesseans that died because of suicide,” he continued. “I think that is the number that we don’t hear enough about because there are more Tennesseans dying by suicide than by car crashes.”

He continued to explain the crisis, but narrowed the margins down to home–Overton County.

The average deaths by suicide in Overton County over six years is 24.2 percent.

“Statistically residents of the Upper Cumberland are twice as likely to die by suicide than would be the rest of the nation,” Anderson said. “It is a pretty shocking statistic.”

The ambulance services and emergency rooms in the Upper Cumberland are leaders in the state with the amount of responses to suicide attempts and deaths.

The major question addressed is why are Tennesseans dying at such high rates of suicide?

“We’ve made the topic of suicide a monster. Monsters when we are children are things that we’re afraid of,” Anderson explained. “We push them out of sight and out of mind, and we’ve made a monster out of it because the awareness is just not there.”

He continued to explain how mental illness and depression has historically been treated as an “evil” instead of a physical illness because of the lack of awareness of the topics.

“Mental illness and mental health in general is a major component of physical health,” he continued. “Suicide is preventable because depression is treatable.”

According to the presentation, suicide is the leading cause of death among youths between the ages of 10 and 17.

Recognizing the risk is extremely important in prevention, he said.

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A two-car wreck on Cookeville Highway a week ago Saturday resulted in injuries for a Cookeville man.

Allen Neal, 48, of Cookeville, was traveling on East Netherland Road in a 2009 Nissan Sentra.

Joyce Smith, 72, of Monterey was traveling south on Highway 111 in a 2018 Chevy Tahoe.

According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol preliminary report, Neal struck the front left side of Smith’s vehicle while trying to cross over Highway 111 onto West Netherland. Both vehicles then traveled off the right side of the roadway.

Smith obtained injuries from the accident.

Neal is being charged with DUI, vehicular assault, possession of drug paraphernalia, tampering with physical evidence and expired registration.

Trooper Tyler McCulley investigated the crash.