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NOTE: If you or someone you know is in immediate danger of harming themselves, please call 911. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text “WYO” to 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line.
CASPER, Wyo. — Hundreds of people showed community solidarity and received a variety of mental health resources at the annual Breaking the Silence Suicide Prevention Walk on Saturday.
Wyoming is notorious for having one of the highest suicide rates in the country, with the most recent data showing that only Alaska and Montana had higher rates. Locally, Natrona County Coroner Jim Whipps said the county has one of the highest rates in the state.
“That’s why things like this are so crucial,” said Whipps, who also serves as the president of the Natrona County Suicide Prevention Task Force. “It’s dire.”
In addition to numerous mental health community partners on hand, this year’s walk also featured the dedication of two benches at Crossroads Park in memory of the father of community member Tasia Naegle. Naegle worked with the task force and the Casper Rotary Club to get the benches placed. The benches are inscribed with the phone number of the suicide prevention hotline, and Naegle added that they will soon be inscribed with a QR code directing people to local resources, both for people struggling with suicidal ideation and for those otherwise impacted by suicide.
“Weeks and months after his passing, I found myself searching for resources, for community, for anything that could help me make sense of my grief,” she said. “From that search came the desire to create something lasting: a place of remembrance for everyone impacted by suicide. In that spirit, the memorial bench project was formed.”
So far this year, Natrona County has seen 16 suicides. Whipps said that number represents a decrease from 2024, when there were 32 total suicides. The highest year on record was 2021, when there were 33 suicides in the county.
“Sixteen is still way too high, but we aren’t going to hit 32 this year with only a few months left,” Whipps said. “This one county is one of the worst in the world. It’s been a long struggle.”
Whipps said that while many people think of suicide as purely a mental health issue, it actually has more to do with social factors.
“It’s all those upstream social determinants of health that are at the root of it. Things like finances, housing, access to healthcare, relationships,” Whipps said. “All those different bubbles outside of mental health are the problem, and mental health conditions are usually a contributory cause.
“I probably wouldn’t want to say it, but if our numbers are consistently high, it’s probably because our community health isn’t as good as it needs to be.”
Whipps said the local task force — inspired by a similar program in Laramie County — is in the early stages of a project to look at the community’s suicide cases and find the most common causes and contributing factors. According to Whipps, Laramie County’s task force found a specific neighborhood that was experiencing an especially high suicide rate; after making a concerted effort to improve resources to the neighborhood, the task force saw a noticeable decline in the rate.
“Looking at the data and homing in on which bubbles really need our help is what we need to do, too,” Whipps said.
