Veteran Calls VA Suicide Hotline…Gets Voicemail….Commits Suicide

Thomas Young was a 30-year-old veteran suffering from depression.  When the pain got really bad, he called the VA Suicide hotline for help.  All he was able to reach was someone’s voicemail.  Voicemail on a suicide hotline???!!!!!  Young then left his house, laid down on the railroad tracks and waited for the train, which took his life.  Either one or two days after his death, the VA returned his call.

Young had served two tours of duty and after the second tour, he returned with a severe case of PTSD.  Young had tried to go to the Hines VA hospital in Illinois because of excessive drinking, but they turned him away telling him they didn’t have a bed for him because he wasn’t suicidal.  Oops.  How many vets is the VA going to kill before Obama and the democrats take action?  Young left a wife and two children behind.

Young had tried to commit suicide a couple of times before but someone would carry him off the tracks, but in July, no one was there to save him.  Sen Mark Kirk complained to VA officials but instead of doing anything, they mocked him for not knowing the name of the official in charge of the hotline.  That might be because the VA refuses to tell congress what they are doing or who is in charge.

From The Daily Caller:

The government-run healthcare provider had been alerted to problems with its suicide hotline four months prior to Young’s death, but didn’t fix the issues. In February 2015, Scripps News Service published video of one vet waiting on hold for more than half an hour, while another told the service that when she called crying and huddled underneath a desk, callous workers merely transferred her repeatedly. Someone eventually said she’d get a message back, but no one ever called. She got in her car to drive off a bridge, but changed her mind.

Scripps asked for records on call center statistics, but the VA wouldn’t provide them. The VA said around that time that it was making changes.

CBS News reported years ago that Dr. Ira Katz, then a top staffer in the VA’s office of mental health, wrote “Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities,” under the subject line “Not for the CBS News Interview.”

“Katz’s e-mail was written shortly after the VA provided CBS News data showing there were only 790 attempted suicides in all 2007 – a fraction of Katz’s estimate,” CBS wrote.

Read more HERE