National Park Suicides

In 2008, 33 people committed suicide in National Parks or sites run by the National Park Service. It is estimated that some 274 million people visited the 391 sites run by the National Park Service. So the number of people killing themselves in the parks is very small on a percentage basis. But the number had been growing over the past few years.

(Great Sand Dunes National Park)

In 2004, 16 people committed suicide in the parks. In both 2005 and 2006, the number increased to 18. In 2007, the number of suicides jumped to 26. Statistically, when economic times are tough more people will commit suicide, which is the most logical reason for the increased suicides in National Parks.

Data is not readily available prior to 2004 because the Park Service either did not keep such data or has not published it. But people have been committing suicide in National Parks since at least 1884, when 27 year old Emily Moore killed herself in Yellowstone National Park by intentionally overdosing on morphine.

In 1993, Lawnchair Larry Walters, who gained fame in 1982 by attaching helium balloons to his backyard lawn chair and soaring some 16,000 feet in the air, killed himself in the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. See Lawnchair Larry’s Wild, Exhilarating and Ultimately Sad Ride Through Life

Topping the list as the top suicide National Park site is the Grand Canyon.

In recent years an estimated 2 people per year kill themselves in the canyon. Three people committed suicide in the Grand Canyon in 2008. See Grand Canyon Fatalities

An estimated 26 people tried to kill themselves in 2008 in the Colorado National Monument.

Two were successful. The monument’s superintendent, Joan Anzelmo, believes the high number of attempted suicides is more a reflection of the local area where the suicide rate is double the national average.

Some of the suicides in National Parks in 2008 include:

A 46 year old Florida man with cancer who took his canoe and disappeared in the Florida Everglades.

A 65-year-old biology professor who disappeared into Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, telling relatives in a note he was returning “body and soul to nature.”

A 49-year-old builder who blamed the economy in a note he left for his ex-wife and attorney before killing himself at the edge of the woods at Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

A 53-year-old unemployed Pennsylvania businessman who traveled to Glacier National Park in Montana and on a forested slope not far from a trail shot himself in the chest with a handgun.

A 70-year-old woman who left a suicide note in the trunk of her car at Arizona’s Saguaro National Park before killing herself about a half-mile from a trail head. On March 6, 2009 another Pennsylvania man also killed himself in Saguaro in his car “through helium inhalation and asphyxiation”.

Park Rangers are taught strategies in dealing with people in crisis and each year Park Rangers talk people out of committing suicide. But each year some park employees must deal with the aftermath of the people who choose to end their own lives in the National Park System.  See Most Dangerous National Parks

For more see Most Popular Suicide Sites