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Jim Short was ready when the sun came up each morning over his fields. He was a farmer who listened to his crops and knew precisely how to produce a good yield. He took pride in what he did for a living. He was the type who was the first in the fields in the morning and the last out at the end of the day. In Craigmont, Idaho, a town of just 500 people where the state's panhandle starts to widen, Jim was a respected man. He owned his home outright. He had been married 30 years and raised three children, who all graduated from college. He loved to drive his Ford pickup around town. He often hosted friends for supper and loved showing out-of-towners the ways of farm life. At the end of a long day, he liked to kick back a glass of water and rye — and sometimes he'd have one too many. With a little drink in him, sometimes he would tell his family that nothing made his heart swell like his children. Sometimes he would cry. Sometimes he would tell them that in every other part of his life, he had failed. His daughter Jamie said that though her father was a deeply conflicted man, she remembers him as a man who personified the spirit of their town. He was always there to help those in need. He was the first to arrive at the home of friends whose son had died by suicide. Jim felt so much pity for the family, he cleaned up the scene so they wouldn't have to. Two weeks before his 50th birthday, just after 4 a.m. on July 19, 2005, Jim's wife found him sitting in the field behind their house, gasping for his last breaths after putting a pistol to his head. Stunned, his family grasped for an answer. Jim's story is one heard too often in the Gem State. Idaho consistently ranks as one of the states with the highest suicide rates from year to year. In 2010, it ranked sixth, with 18.5 suicides per 100,000 people (PDF), and in 2011, 285 people died by suicide there. Suicide is estimated to cost the state $36 million annually. Every year, Idaho, New Mexico, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Nevada, among others, seem to leapfrog one another in the top 10 as the most suicidal. They're giant states — ones with more fields and long stretches of freeway than urban centers, places with populations of cows that rival those of people. Idaho is where Ernest Hemingway made his home and where he died by suicide in 1961. And in a place like Idaho, one that relies heavily on rural people and a thriving agribusiness to contribute to its economy, the suicide rate of farmers remains a concern. In a report on suicide prevention in Idaho (PDF) from the state's Department of Health and Welfare, researchers said a lack of social and mental-health support — in addition to the unique stresses of farming — and access to lethal means puts people like farmers at a high risk for suicide.

Nowhere to turn

Rugged individualism is something you'll hear a lot about in Idaho. It's a phrase popularized by President Herbert Hoover and one Idahoans use like a creed to describe their self-reliance. But it's a mentality that doesn't lend itself to seeking help if someone is depressed or suicidal. (So strong is the stigma of depression, admission of vulnerabiliy and suicide, that Jim's daughter asked that his and her name be changed in this story to protect their identities). Shortly before Jim's death, a hailstorm ripped through his fields and destroyed an entire crop of peas and lentils. "Farmers have the hardest life where we come from," Jamie said. "The weather makes or breaks the crop, and there are very limited things a farmer can control." The storm caused Jim to suffer an $80,000 loss. "I think this sort of broke him a bit," Jamie said. "He worked so hard, and to have it gone in one storm, it was too much." No matter how hard he worked, Jim wouldn't be able to make up that loss. And he was a humble man who would never ask for help.

Fearlessness is what's required. It's not the same thing, by the way, as bravery or courage.

Efforts by the state to keep its citizens from dying by suicide are unstable at best. The state's suicide hotline was shuttered because of a lack of funding in 2006, reopening just last November. And though the hotline has expanded its hours since then, it has secured only enough funding to keep the lines open for the next two years. Even worse, Idaho's medical support system is bleak. Idaho has one of the lowest concentrations of doctors in the country (PDF). Plus its medical professionals are aging. NPR reports that 41.5 percent of the physicians in the state are 55 or older. And Idaho fares even worse for medical residents, with only 3.9 residents per 100,000 Idahoans. That's all bad news, especially considering that Mental Health America has reported that nearly three quarters of those who die by suicide visited a doctor in the four months before their death. This revelation prompted legislation in neighboring Washington state to require all clinicians to undergo mandatory suicide-prevention training on the chance that they could spot warning signs in a potentially suicidal person. But in a state with not enough doctors, how can people be helped?

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