PermiaCare crisis worker Billy Alexander is a busy man. Every month the PermiaCare crisis unit evaluates more than 100 Ector County residents who are struggling with mental health and/or substance abuse issues. The three-member unit visits them in their homes, in hospitals and in schools. Ninety percent of them are suicidal, Alexander said.
There was a time when most of the people they were evaluating were adults. Not anymore, he said.
“Hardly a day goes by that we don’t see a kid and that’s new, that’s just been within the last year or two,” Alexander said.
For the last 20 years, Alexander’s job has been to determine if people in crisis are a danger to themselves or others — in other words, if they need to be hospitalized or simply referred to mental health experts. He and his colleagues get called in by law enforcement officers, hospital employees and school administrators.
Sometimes the people are behaving irrationally, talking about suicide or acting out of character. Other times they’ve landed in the hospital after overdosing on drugs, crashing their vehicles while under the influence or attempting to commit suicide.
The people they see are struggling, Alexander said. The kids he sees are struggling with bullying or their sexual identity, school work or dysfunctional families or a combination of all of them. The adults have often lost their jobs, their families and their homes. Many of those he visits with have mental health issues.
“We’ve dealt with kids as young as 7-years-old who are dealing with mental health issues,” Alexander said. “There’s probably not a school in the Basin that we’ve not been to over the last few years.”
Too often, Alexander said, both groups are turning to drugs and alcohol to cope.
STATISTICS
The Ector County Medical Examiner’s Office often sees the impact of drugs, alcohol and depression.
According to records obtained under Texas’ Public Information Act, 86 Ector County residents committed suicide from 2019-2021. Another 64 died as a result of vehicle crashes involving impaired drivers and 93 died as a result of drug overdoses.
A handful of people accidentally met their deaths without getting behind the wheel. One man bled to death after accidentally stabbing or cutting himself several times and a couple of men suffered fatal injuries after falling.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. In 2020, nearly 46,000 Americans killed themselves and an estimated 12.2 million adults seriously thought about it. The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher, according to the CDC.
The highest number of those who commit or try to commit suicide are white, Native American and Alaska natives. A high percentage of them are also veterans, people who live in rural areas, miners, construction workers and people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to the CDC.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 28 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes every day — one person every 52 minutes. In 2019, more than 10,000 people died in drunk driving crashes.
As for drug-related crashes, the Governors’ Highway Safety Association reports 43.6% of fatally injured drivers in 2016 tested positive for drugs and over half of those drivers were positive for two or more drugs.
Unless the drivers have left notes or voiced their intentions, it’s difficult to say how many of them were trying to commit suicide, but Alexander said he can speak to that anecdotally.
“In talking with people at the hospital, a lot of their plans were to commit suicide by wreck; they intended to commit suicide by running into a pole or something,” Alexander said.
As for overdoses, Alexander said he’ll occassionally speak with hospital patients who say they accidentally took too many pills because they were dealing with insomnia or pain, but “the bigger majority of them have done it on purpose, they will say they hoped to die.”
FENTANYL
Ron Inge spent 25 years with the Odessa Police Department, including several years in the homicide unit. Now the chief investigator for the Ector County Medical Examiner’s Office, Inge investigates those cases in which someone dies without witnesses and the cause and manner of death aren’t obvious.
Sometimes when authorities are trying to determine if someone died as a result of suicide, homicide, accident or natural causes, autopsies and toxicology tests are required.
Many times, if someone is a known drug user, Inge said only toxicology tests are run.
Lately, most cases are only requiring toxicology tests, he said.
According to medical examiner’s records, a wide range of drugs killed folks from 2019-2021, among them: opioids, methamphetamine, cocaine or a combination thereof.
Inge’s biggest concern right now is the increase in fentanyl-related deaths.
“Our drug abuse cases are going through the roof, especially the fentanyl cases,” Inge said.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than morphine and according to the medical examiner’s office, the youngest fentanyl overdose victim from 2019-2021 was a 12-year-old boy. Two other 15-year-old boys also died after taking fentanyl.
The bluish-green pills are coming from China via Mexico and because there is no quality control, he’s heard 25-30% of the pills contain a lethal dose of the drug.
If you take two grains of salt out of a pile on a table, that’s a lethal dose, Inge said.
He recalls one case in which a young man, maybe 20 or 21, took one fentanyl pill and was fine, although disappointed he wasn’t getting “high” enough. He took another pill and died, Inge said.
Particularly disturbing is the fact people are literally dying the first time they’ve ever taken an illicit substance if that substance happens to be fentanyl, Inge said.
“Fentanyl has gone crazy. I’ve never seen such an influx,” Inge said.
HELPING
PermiaCare’s Alexander said the key to helping people is to listen and watch them and to remind them there are people available to help.
Sudden changes in behavior can indicate depression or substance abuse issues and talk of suicide should never be dismissed as melodramatic or typical teenage angst, Alexander said.
Brian Wingfield, a therapist with Samaritan Counseling, agreed.
“A lot of times when people are in a depression state they tend to isolate from others and a lot of them, before they make a suicide attempt, make comments and statements that people have dismissed or they were slightly alarmed, but they didn’t take action on,” Wingfield said. “Those comments could be something along the lines of ‘I hate life’ or ‘I wish I wasn’t alive.’”
There are other red flags, too.
“If someone has been real depressed for a long time and suddenly one day their life is good, that’s a red flag that they’ve made their mind up they’re going to commit suicide,” Alexander said.
Another warning sign is the gifting of personal belongings, Alexander said.
“There are a lot of cases where you can look back and think ‘The red flags were there,’ so there is a real potential to save lives if you call attention to the behaviors,” Wingfield said.
If parents suspect their child is using drugs, Wingfield suggested they speak with them about the dangers of doing so. Unfortunately, teenagers, because their brains haven’t fully developed yet, tend to engage in impulsive, risky behavior, he said.
And whether its children or adults, Wingfield said people need to find other coping mechanisms, ones that can last a lifetime.
“They should try to find a healthy outlet. We all have stress, but it’s how we deal with that stress that determines whether it’s positive or negative.”
Positive coping mechanisms could include going for a walk, joining a gym, painting, reading, drawing or listening to music.
“There’s not a one size fits all approach here,” Wingfield said.
HOTLINES
- PermiaCare: 1-844-420-3964
- Texas Youth Helpline: Call or text, 1-877-666-3661
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255
ECTOR COUNTY SUICIDE STATISTICS
Gunshots; Hanging; Other means; Totals
2019: 11, 11, 3, 25
2020: 22, 6, 4, 32
2021: 16, 14, 0, 30
Source: Ector County Medical Examiner’s Office
ECTOR COUNTY FATAL DWIs*; OVERDOSES
2019: 18, 28
2020: 26, 30
2021: 22**, 35
*Includes seven pedestrians struck by intoxicated drivers
**Two intoxicated people were struck and killed by trains
Source: Ector County Medical Examiner’s Office
