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No One is Untouchable: The First Lesson of Suicide Prevention
The day after the Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s mental health counseling center took his own life, I found myself on the platform of a SEPTA station in East Falls, passing out suicide prevention literature to morning commuters. I wasn’t there because the Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s mental health counseling center took his life the previous day, I was there because it was World Suicide Prevention Day, and I was part of a county taskforce partnership with our regional rail service to pass out educational material related to suicide prevention.
Warning signs and such.
People arriving on the platform that morning were reading about the suicide at Penn on their phones, and some commuters were surprised that here was this guy, the very next morning, handing them a card with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s number on it. I remember people stopping to talk to me that September morning, expressing shock and disbelief over this very high-profile suicide, a suicide of someone in charge of helping struggling college students with their mental health. Some of the people I spoke to were outright and downright angry.
“But he was the HEAD of Penn’s counseling center!” they exclaimed to me.