Campbell County suicide rate down from previous year

GILLETTE — Campbell County may be seeing a downturn in suicide cases after a two-year spike, but for now, it’s too early to tell.

Ashley McRae, the county’s suicide prevention specialist and a board member of the Campbell County Prevention Council, said that while numbers have dipped since the county hit a high watermark in 2022, it’ll take a couple more years to know if the trend is consistent.

In 2024, the number of cases was 12, compared to about 20 in each of the two previous years. Before 2022, the year-high in Campbell County had been 15.

With several prevention measures that have been implemented in the last few years – including stickers publicizing local and national helplines –  and increased crisis training for law enforcement, it’s unclear whether a single strategy is helping to stem the tide, she said.

“It could be the flyers we put out … and someone was able to talk to someone,” McRae said. “It could be the training we do.”

In 2022, the Prevention Council developed the stickers now displayed at businesses throughout downtown Gillette that provide numbers for crisis hotlines and a QR code that can be scanned for more resources.

In the first three weeks the stickers were released, those QR codes were scanned more than 1,000 times. McRae said that calls and texts to helplines, as well as preemptive hospital visits, are up — which means people are being more proactive about seeking help.

“That tells me people are getting help, which is great,” McRae said. “People should continue to do that.”

McRae said Campbell County law enforcement officers were able to start training with Crisis Intervention Team training in 2021. CIT is a 40-hour program that teaches officers how to interact with people in mental crisis to reduce the chance that officers will harm them during a call.

“Now all but a small number of officers have received CIT training,” McRae said, adding the training means people experiencing suicidal ideation can get the help they need, instead of being “(stuck) … in jail.”

Because of the training, officers are making more people aware of the mental health resources available in Campbell County they can call on for help. Normally, it can be extremely difficult to know if a person needs those resources, she said.

“It’s so hard to gauge mental health. (People) don’t wear it on their outside,” McRae said.

She said the reasons some Campbell County residents struggle with their mental health — and the reasons they may have historically been more reluctant to seek services — are cultural.

“I think we have the mentality that we can’t have strong Wyoming values … and struggle,” McRae said.

Combined with the county’s boom-and-bust economy, seasonal depression and the extremely demanding aspects of mine shift work, reaching out for help takes courage that the Prevention Council is trying to meet halfway.

“People who reach out say things like ‘I’m so weak, you probably don’t think I can take care of my family,’ when it’s the opposite,” McRae said.

This story was published on January 24, 2025.