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Baby boomer suicides rise on Peninsula Clallam rate tops state; Jefferson 9th
Suicides now outnumber car deaths BY TARA PARKER-POPE
BY PAUL GOTTLIEB
THE NEW YORK TIMES
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
JEREMY SCHWARTZ (2)/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Dave Louden, a member of Mount Pleasant Grange, and his wife, Francie, Grange treasurer, stand on the deck of the aging building.
History taking its toll on Mount Pleasant hall BY JEREMY SCHWARTZ PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Louden examines holes that have grown in one of the wooden risers on either side of the building.
PORT ANGELES — Nola Hulse can remember a time when the rafters of the Mount Pleasant Grange Community Hall rang with the stomps of dancing feet and peals of live music most every weekend. “It was just a good way to meet people,” said Hulse, 85, a longtime member of Mount Pleasant Grange No. 1112, which manages the hall at 2432 Mount Pleasant Road. “And you became friends,” she added, “and you all got along.” Hulse told of her late husband, Victor, a longtime Grange master in the 1980s and 1990s, singing with friends in a quartet at the hall during Christmastime and fundraising booster meals. “We just had a good time,” Hulse said Friday. “Everybody was friends.” Now, the floor that once supported countless dances and even roller-skating parties has weakened and started to warp. It even gives slightly underfoot in some areas. TURN
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GRANGE/A6
Large per capita population A quarter of Clallam’s population of 71,838 is 65 and older, more than double Yakima County’s percentage of the same age group. There were 13 self-inflicted deaths alone in Clallam County among the 55-and-older population in 2010, the same number as Yakima County-size Thurston County and more than one-quarter of Clallam County’s total for the 11-year period. Suicide rates tend to be higher in isolated rural areas than in high-population centers, said Kelly Schwab, program manager for Crisis Clinic of the Peninsulas. The agency answers crisis calls from Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties. “A connection to human beings is the biggest buffer” to conditions that lead to suicide, Schwab said.
Mystery refrigerant found in wells BY JOE SMILLIE PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
SEQUIM –– Clallam County is investigating a mysterious concentration of Freon 22, a refrigerant once commonly used in heat pumps and air conditioners, recently discovered in wells outside Sequim. Jennifer Garcelon, project manager with the Clallam County Health and Human Services Envi-
ronmental Health Department, said the amount of Freon 22 detected in samples tested by state and county health officials does not present a public health threat. The Freon 22 was discovered by state Department of Health officials while performing a test for volatile organic compounds in the Deytona Water System, which provides water to 27 homes just north of the city limit. It was later found in samples
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taken from four nearby private wells. Freon 22 evaporates into a gas form as soon as it hits ambient air, according to Sophia Petrow with the state Department of Health. It boils into a gas at temperatures below freezing. That means, Petrow said, the chance of it sickening those who ingest it are slim. TURN
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Jefferson County’s suicide rate for the 55-and-older population of 21.6 per 100,000 from 1999-2010 compares with 16.7 per 100,000 for Kitsap, he noted. The per-100,000 per capita rate was not calculated for Clallam for 2010 because it was fewer than 20 and considered “unreliable,” according to the report, and a similar figure for 2010 for Jefferson County was not listed in the study. TURN
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Our popular Business, Politics and Environment section — formerly Section D of Sunday’s PDN — has moved. It’s now part of Section A every Sunday. You’ll find its special stories on Pages A10-A15 today. IN ADDITION . . . Peninsula Profile, formerly part of Section C, is a four-page stand-alone section in today’s PDN that can be found packaged with TV Week magazine and the Classified Advertising section.
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Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm. More people now die of suicide than in car wrecks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of Atlanta, which reported that in 2010, there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides. Suicide typically has been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-aged Americans is surprising. From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, up from 13.7.
Clallam County leads the state in suicides among baby boomers, while Jefferson County is ninth in the age group. Those statistics are included in a new nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on self-inflicted deaths. The CDC listed 53 self-inflicted deaths in Clallam County for the 1999-2010 study period. The per capita rate in Clallam was 32 deaths per 100,000 in the time period for the 55-and-older age group among the 26 counties that reported. That compares with the study period’s 48 suicides in Yakima County, another rural county. In Yakima County, the rate is half of Clallam’s, while the population of 247,141 is more than three times greater.
BUSINESS/POLITICS A10 E1 CLASSIFIED COMMENTARY/LETTERS A16 C4 DEAR ABBY C6, C7 DEATHS C8 MOVIES A3 NATION A2 PENINSULA POLL PENINSULA PROFILE D1 TV WEEK
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