Savannah Phillips never thought suicide would be part of her family’s story. But it’s there, the last line in her father’s obituary, in a plea to others to call a helpline before it’s too late.
As a young man, Charles Rust attended high school in Broken Bow and ran track and field in college. As an adult, he struggled with drugs and alcohol, Phillips said, and some of his life choices left him in a lonely place.
Two years ago, in a parking lot in Antlers, Rust shot himself with a 9mm handgun and died. He was 70.
“Whatever drove him to that decision just wasn’t true,” Phillips said. “Lots of people loved him. We all make mistakes. We all need Jesus.”
Phillips’ willingness to talk about her father’s suicide helps shed light on a troubling trend: more older Americans are dying by gun suicide. The rate is particularly high in Oklahoma, and especially in rural counties. Pushmataha County, where Rust lived, had a rate of gun suicide deaths among older adults higher than in any U.S. state, according to an analysis of detailed mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2023 by The Trace and GQ.
Their reporting found Americans 70 and over had the highest suicide rates of any age group, and their rates of suicide have increased in recent years. During this period, 63,836 older Americans died by gun suicide.
Gun suicide is a greater killer of men over 70 than car crashes, the analysis showed. Older white men die by gun suicide at the highest rate — a rate more than triple that of Black and Latino men of the same age, and 19 times the rate of women 70 and over.
Oklahoma had the 10th-highest rate among U.S. states at 18.6 per 100,000 residents aged 70 and older (an explanation of The Trace’s methodology can be found online).
Oklahoma also has one of the highest overall gun suicide rates, at 13.6 per 100,000 residents in 2023, the fifth highest among U.S. states, according to Violence Policy Center data from 2023, the latest available.
No single factor drives the high rates of suicide later in life, The Trace found. Severe illness, pain, financial pressures, isolation, a lack of mental health care, cognitive impairment and the availability of firearms all played a role.
Autopsy and law enforcement reports of older, Oklahoma men who died by suicide sometimes cite terminal illnesses, such as cancer.
Zack Stoycoff, executive director of the Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, said among men, there’s more of a stigma around seeking help. It’s important, he said, to screen for mental health issues during physical health services because many of these men are visiting the doctor regularly or receiving treatment for a physical condition.
“We can do a lot better in addressing mental health in primary care settings,” Stoycoff said.
In rural counties, especially, there are fewer services and longer wait times. One mental health provider in Pushmataha County, Bailey Armstrong, said communities need to invest more in resources like transportation, drug treatment and education.
“Nobody talks about it,” Armstrong said. “There’s a huge, huge stigma around suicide and it’s almost like people locally think if you say the word suicide, you’re asking for it to happen.”
With additional reporting by Aaron Mendelson of The Trace.
Jennifer Palmer has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2016 and covers education. Contact her at (405) 761-0093 or jpalmer@oklahomawatch.org. Follow her on Twitter @jpalmerOKC.
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