Newly released data shows Colorado’s veteran suicide rate continuing to outpace that of the U.S. As in previous years, the state’s veteran suicide rate was significantly higher than the national average in 2019, according to a fact sheet published this month by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2019, Colorado had a rate of 43.1 suicide deaths per 100,000 veterans.
From 2018 to 2019, the data shows, the national veteran suicide rate declined by 7.2% when accounting for changes in the population’s age and sex. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs calls this drop “unprecedented across the last 20 years.” But Colorado’s suicide rate among veterans held flat from 2018 to 2019. Even with the decline nationally, 6,261 veterans died by suicide in 2019 alone, according to the VA’s September report. That’s an average of more than 17 deaths per day.
For some former service members, the VA’s resources for mental health and substance use fall short of what’s needed — putting more lives at risk.
“If a veteran, or anybody, is having an emotional trauma, breakdown … their life is in danger,” said Ted Engelmann, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam, and a freelance embed photographer in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It could be as bad as suicide, let’s put it that way, or the anguish that they’re going through personally is a real difficult situation.”
Engelmann, who has spent years seeking to raise awareness of the challenges faced by fellow veterans, said he recently experienced difficulty scheduling an appointment at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Center. He was told the earliest counseling he could receive was “70 days out.”
Read more at ColoradoNewsline.com.
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