From Investigation to Prevention Coroner James Whipps on Reducing Suicide Rates

In this episode, Natrona County Coroner James Whipps discusses his background and role in investigating deaths, with a special emphasis on suicide prevention. He shares insights into the frequency and preventability of suicides in his community, underlining the importance of public awareness, early intervention, and community involvement. Whipps elaborates on signs and symptoms of suicidal tendencies, emphasizing the need for education and proactive measures to reduce suicide rates. He also describes his involvement in various task forces aiming to mitigate preventable deaths and highlights the shift in demographic trends of suicides towards younger individuals. The conversation touches on societal attitudes towards suicide and the critical role of resilience and coping skills training in preventing such tragedies.

Meet Our Guest: Coroner James Whipps

Coroner James Whipps has been the Natrona County coroner for five years and has amassed 25 years of experience in death investigation. His diverse background spans business, military law enforcement, and medical-legal death investigation. Unlike many, Whipps has taken a proactive stance on suicide prevention, driven by a mission to reduce preventable deaths.

Understanding the Role of a Coroner

James Whipps elaborates on his role within Natrona County, explaining how his office predominantly investigates unnatural deaths while also dealing with natural deaths occurring outside medical facilities. As an elected official, Whipps is not only accountable for coroner business but also for integrating himself within the community to push forward his mission of preventing deaths that can be avoided, including suicides.

Suicide Prevention: From Response to Prevention

Whipps' journey into proactive suicide prevention began with his involvement in the Natrona County Suicide Prevention Task Force. Initially rooted in response, his role evolved as he recognized the prevalence of preventable suicides. The PROSPER initiative, which stands for the Proactive Reduction of Suicide in Populations via Evidence-Based Research, underscores his belief that addressing suicide requires more than just responding to incidents—it necessitates a comprehensive, proactive community approach.

Identifying Signals and Achieving Intervention

During the discussion, Dr. Kent Corso and Coroner Whipps highlights the importance of recognizing signs and symptoms of suicidal thoughts. They reiterate that most individuals contemplating suicide display signs, albeit often cryptic, signaling their internal struggle without directly stating their intent. Common signs include expressing feelings of worthlessness or desiring death, changes in behavior, and making statements with a foreshortened future perspective.

Breaking the Stigma: Suicide is Not Just a Mental Health Issue

A significant portion of the podcast focuses on breaking the stigma associated with suicide. Whipps emphasizes that although mental health can play a role, suicide is a multifaceted social issue. He challenges the notion that suicidal ideation equates to having a mental health condition, arguing that societal and personal stressors often precipitate these thoughts.

Raising Awareness and Community Education

Awareness and education stand out as fundamental tools in suicide prevention. Whipps shares statistical insights, revealing that Wyoming has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation and even the world. He postulates that educating the community about the signs of suicidal thoughts and encouraging intervention at crucial moments can save lives.

Empowering Communities to Act

The discourse ventures into the need for community-driven solutions. The hosts discuss that even though the issue is complex and diverse, the solution lies within community involvement. Educating youth on resilience and coping skills is vital, as many underlying issues manifest during adolescence and become critical during adulthood.

Final Thoughts and Call to Action

In closing, Coroner Whipps asserts the need for widespread education on recognizing and addressing suicide. He encourages communities to adopt a proactive stance, emphasizing the importance of early intervention. Dr. Kent Corso echoes these sentiments and promises to delve deeper into practical solutions in future episodes.

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reminder of the impactful role each individual can play in suicide prevention. By being informed, empathetic, and ready to intervene, communities can help save lives. The discussion with Coroner James Whipps underscores the gravity of the issue and highlights that while the challenge is significant, it is not insurmountable with collective effort and awareness.

We hope this conversation inspires you to take action in your community. Stay tuned for more insights and solutions in our upcoming episodes.

For more information on mental health support, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

For more information on Prosper, go to the website

Dr Kent Corso: Hi, my name is Kent Corso and I'm your host for this

episode of One Minute Can Save a Life.

While I am a licensed clinical psychologist, none of these guests

are my patients, nor does anything I say constitute medical advice.

The views conveyed during our conversations do not reflect the

views, positions, or policies of any private or public organization.

This is simply a series of conversations with people who have some connection to

hardship, suicide, mental health, or loss.

There's so much we can learn from one another, so let's get started.

Today's guest is Coroner James Whipps of Natrona County.

Welcome.

Thank you, sir.

Can you tell the audience a little bit about who you are and

what your background is, James?

Coronor James Whipps: Absolutely.

I am the current Natrona County coroner.

I've been the coroner for five years, been in the business of

investigating death for 25 years now.

And my background is pretty diverse in business and military law

enforcement, and obviously higher medical legal death investigation.

Dr Kent Corso: Great.

So does that also mean, Coroner Whips, that you are a law enforcement officer

or prior law enforcement officer?

Coronor James Whipps: I have my degree in criminal justice and primarily

I did a lot of my investigative work in the private sector.

But the coroner System or quasi law enforcement in that we have

jurisdiction within the death scenes and act in an investigative fashion,

law enforcement wise with that.

Okay.

Dr Kent Corso: And can you talk a little more about your role

within the Trona County, whether it's procedural or processes?

Without getting into too much detail, just so that our listeners have a

sense of what you do day in and day

Coronor James Whipps: out.

Sure.

So our expertise in the coroner's office is to investigate

unnatural death primarily.

Now we do take on a lot of cases that are natural death, which comes

into the, the medical portion of it.

When death happens outside of a medical facility and.

We step in to investigate just to make sure that something

unnatural didn't happen.

Primarily, we get called out on every scene that basically happens outside

of a facility that's unnatural.

And we will go into facilities when people end up in the facility due to an

unnatural death or A death that is unknown that needs to be investigated and figured

out the, that manner of cause of death.

I'm an elected official.

I play a role there as coroner.

I have the job of doing the coroner business, but I'm also an elected

official and then try and play a part in the community in that aspect.

And then I'm also involved in doing what I feel.

I was called to this job to do, and that's to do everything in my

power to try and reduce preventable death, suicide being one of those.

So, I'm active in a lot of review committees and, uh, task forces.

And all those kinds of different things so much that I probably got to start saying

no, you're pretty quick to some of this focusing on priorities, but yeah, that's

pretty much what I do is the, uh, working on active investigation with my team.

I'm, I'm working on.

Those things that would reduce our caseload, the preventable death

types of deals, and trying to be the prevention factor there.

Dr Kent Corso: Let's talk a little more about preventable deaths.

I was first introduced to you in the context of the program that

we are implementing in multiple counties in Wyoming, that's PROSPER.

The proactive reduction of suicide in populations via evidence based research.

When I was first introduced to you, Coroner Whips, I was impressed by how

active you are on that prevention side of things versus solely the responsive

side of things when a death happens.

What got you into that upstream prevention work?

Coronor James Whipps: The former coroner, when I first came on,

actually hooked me up with the Natrona County Suicide Prevention Task Force.

The Natrona And I was a member of that and it spiraled from there, suicide

being in my opinion, the number one preventable death that there is.

I fit with my mission that I needed to get out and work in that area

and it just really snowballed in the fact that suicide is so multifaceted.

And affects so many different areas of the community that it required

my involvement in several groups.

So,

Dr Kent Corso: from your perspective, suicide is one of the most preventable

deaths, I would agree with you.

And if we try to look at the data briefly, just to make sure that we're leveling

the playing field with our audience.

80 percent of people who are suicidal show some sign or symptom that they're

struggling, 20 percent typically do not.

So if we want to truly be realistic about the impact we can make.

In those types of preventable deaths, we should expect about 80

percent reduction in suicide if we're doing absolutely everything we can.

Coronor James Whipps: And I agree with you on that wholeheartedly.

One of the things that comes out of my position and the reason that I

feel that I can help the community as a whole with this is on the

backside where I can look backwards once everything has truly gone south.

Thank you.

And get the big picture where I think that the community as a whole

only sees a small part of this.

And one of the things that I've noticed when I start researching these cases.

is that almost always I can find where the signs, the symptoms were displayed,

but the intervention didn't happen.

And if we could have intervened at those particular moments in

time, we could have saved a life.

Dr Kent Corso: I see.

So your findings so far is, and I like how you say that.

Most community members may see a suicide at a point in time, but

you're able to have the long view.

That is to say, you're able to look back over many years of data and then

to look deeply within each case to pull together some patterns or some

common situations, opportunities, or maybe even failed opportunities.

And it sounds like what you're saying is a trend you've noticed is that many

of the suicides in the Toronto County.

The person did display some signs or symptoms, but there was no one

who initiated a conversation with them about those signs and symptoms.

Am I understanding you?

Coronor James Whipps: You are, that is correct.

I can see where, and honestly, it's in my opinion, it's Really a, a

lack of education to the community as a whole on those symptoms.

When someone has, has basically gone down that rabbit hole on their

normal behavior, this is different and, and needs to be dealt with.

That they, they need help that particular moment in time.

The other thing that I notice, and when you spoke the other night, the Prosper

event for the community, you brought up something that I've been saying for

years, in that our community, and I think probably even Wyoming as a whole,

and maybe, you know, all the communities that go through what we call the Suicide

Belt, really have hardened themselves or taken that, the attitude that this is the

way it is, this is the way it's always been, this is the way it will always be.

So they put suicide out there in a bubble as a norm, and there's nothing

that we can do to affect that.

Dr Kent Corso: So your observation, Coroner Whips, is that the greater

community in Natrona just accepts that suicide's a problem here,

and that's just the way it is.

And maybe they've become either numb to it, or immune to it, or I don't

want to say a cold or callous because I've met the people in that community.

They're very kind people.

They're very engaging people.

So there's something, some sort of a human or behavioral phenomenon, maybe

it's psychological that has happened.

That's what you're saying.

Correct.

Just to go back a moment, you said that the recent suicides, people

didn't notice the signs and symptoms.

Let's just Open that conversation up for a moment for our listeners.

What are those signs and symptoms they should be looking for?

Coronor James Whipps: It's a lot of times things that take them out

of what you know to be their norm.

And what I find a lot of it is very cryptic in that the person is asking for

help, but doesn't want to come right out and say, I'm having suicidal thoughts.

It could be simple things like.

I wish I were dead.

Life is no longer worth living.

So,

Dr Kent Corso: it sounds like people are hinting, but they are

not comfortable coming right out and saying, I'm thinking of killing myself.

And it makes sense that they hint.

Maybe they say things like, Oh, all of that won't matter anyway in a few weeks.

Right?

Something that suggests they have a foreshortened future.

It makes sense that they are not forthcoming with it because number one,

people don't seek help easily in general.

And when it comes to talking about suicide, there are all sorts of

worries that if I say I'm thinking of killing myself, people might

think I'm crazy or I might lose my job or I might lose my friends.

Is that true?

What's happening there?

Coronor James Whipps: Yes.

As a matter of fact, mentioned that as mental health and there's the,

the stigma or the belief at suicide.

Is mental health condition.

You say you're suicidal or having suicidal ideations is for some reasons tied to

you have mental health problems, right?

And it's treated that way, whether it's through a 381 holds, whether

it's the interventions really put you in a bubble of crazy having some

sort of mental health condition.

And when you look at the picture as a whole, that's very rarely the case.

You may have a mental health diagnosis that may contribute, but

really what we're looking at are multifaceted social conditions that

are bringing people to this dark place.

Honestly, if we're going to tackle this, that's what we have to go after.

It's like I said, uh, people tend to think of it.

As a mental health condition, you're not going to find suicide in the DSM

5 as a mental health condition and you'll never find a coroner, medical

examiner, or anybody listing a cause of death as a mental condition.

Obviously, it may play a part as a contributing factor.

Suicide is, like I said, so complex that there are so many things that go

into it that bring people to that place.

It's never just one single thing, right?

Yeah, it's

Dr Kent Corso: usually a combination of stressors that leads them to think

that and, and actually act on it.

So from your perspective, Coroner, if it's a highly complex issue, if it's a

social issue, people in Natrona County might be um, to it, or let's just say

accepting that this is the way things are, what do we need to do differently?

What can we possibly do to improve

Coronor James Whipps: this?

One of the things that I've always said since really delving into this project

is that intervention is the absolute key.

When you look at these suicides, a lot of things that will go into making it

up, but it's one brief moment in time where the blinders are on, everything

goes dark, and you're in that tunnel, and suicide is the only option.

If intervention can take place, To get you past that one moment,

then life has been saved.

As far as what can we do, because suicides, at least from my

research and my perspective on the whole thing, is very diverse.

It's very unique.

It's very hard to pinpoint any one cause like you would for any

other problem and go after it.

Like I said, any one group, any one organization, they can't do it alone.

You're not going to be able to affect it.

What it takes is the entire community having an education and understanding

what that dark place looks like and the things that make it up and being

comfortable enough to make that intervention before they get to that

point, especially in the youth bullying.

All the crazy social media stuff that goes on now with our youth

and all these factors and we have to be able to attack all

Dr Kent Corso: of them.

I hear you saying a few things, Coroner.

One thing I hear you saying is we need to raise awareness and we

need everybody to understand what those signs and symptoms look like.

The second thing I hear you saying Is that then people really need to

lean forward and be part of that solution to do whatever training

we give them in order to intervene.

I also hear you saying that one size doesn't fit all or maybe another way

to say that is there are multiple solutions that can be implemented.

It's not just one solution that's going to solve everything.

So let me ask this.

What do people in the Trona need to hear to realize?

This is not just the way things are, or things don't have to stay this way.

How do we help people understand that this is changeable?

Especially if their expectation is just more of the same.

More suicide, or high suicide.

Coronor James Whipps: Awareness being probably that key word.

People have to recognize that there's a problem.

I talked to several people, and they're literally shocked.

When I tell them the numbers,

Dr Kent Corso: let's state those numbers clearly corner.

Where are we with the numbers?

And how does that compare to other localities in

Coronor James Whipps: Wyoming right now for this year, we're sitting on 22

suicides by percentage of population.

That's extremely high in Wyoming, but I don't think it's probably

the highest when it comes to that.

Vitals and statistics, when they report this, there's always an asterisk near

some of these, because you may have a community of 3, 000 people and one

suicide may make them one of the higher percentage of population that there is.

When it comes to suicide by total number, I'm right up near the

top because I do have one of the higher populations in the state.

But.

Wyoming as a whole is always been in the top one, two or three in the nation.

And people won't believe me when I say this, but when you look at

percentage of population, we're one of the top in the world.

So there is a specific problem.

Now, research has been done across the board on everything from wind

to altitude to the world to name it.

And because every case is unique and it's so diverse, you

can't pinpoint any one thing.

And a lot of times when you can't pinpoint the root cause, you can't come up

Dr Kent Corso: with a solution.

That's right.

And let's be honest, we can't change the wind.

We can't change the altitude.

We're not going to change the ruralness because that's part

of what makes Wyoming amazing.

The communities that are either farmers or ranchers or miners, there are such.

Rich endowments in Wyoming of natural resources that drive many of the

industries and many of the lifestyles, philosophies, cultural elements.

So what part can we mitigate?

Coronor James Whipps: Again, it's going to be awareness and it's going to be.

Prevention and intervention, for example, in a bigger sense, if you had an airline

going down every single day and killing everybody on board, everybody would know

about and be jumping to and going, what's going on, treating it like an epidemic,

a pandemic, something bad that they're going to go after and try and fix.

People need to know what the problem is and recognize that there is a problem.

And then, like I said, be educated and be willing to step

in and do something about it.

Dr Kent Corso: Absolutely.

Let's get people aware.

Once they're aware, let's give them tools so they can help intervene.

And that involves education and maybe training.

The kind of training that we're doing, obviously, in several different counties.

Does everybody want to help corner whips?

Is everybody just.

Really looking to help others and they've got tons of free time.

Or are you suggesting that in the awareness process that will motivate

people to be more a part of the solution?

Coronor James Whipps: I'm a believer that people are good at their core.

And when we talk about someone who has.

Completed suicide.

They have a group of people around them that obviously care, but for whatever

reason were ignorant to what was going on with that particular person, whether

it's something that they just didn't recognize through lack of awareness

or any one of those factors, there's.

Always going to be someone around these people that are willing to step in.

It's just, they've got to know that there's a problem and

they've got to know how to fix it.

That tends to make people shy away because of its stigma from anything.

And we'll have that question mark above their head.

What do I do?

Dr Kent Corso: That's a great point, Corder.

It sounds like what you're saying is more of the lost survivors.

So these are people who have lost a loved one to suicide.

If more of the lost survivors in the Trona County were able to have a platform,

were able to describe what are the signs they saw just prior to their loved one

ending his or her life, this might educate people, resonate with people, it might

Help them have empathy for those who have lost someone, thereby motivating

them to be part of the solution.

Is that

Coronor James Whipps: what you're saying?

Absolutely.

It's again, the, the, the community as a whole is the only answer to this.

I agree.

It's, it is the only answer it's, it's that everybody recognizes there's a

problem and knows what those, those signs, those symptoms, those things are.

And is proactive about that is willing to step in and get

someone help or, or be that.

That in between person.

Dr Kent Corso: Sure.

In the short term, it sounds like you're describing behaviors that

in my observation are very much consistent with the culture and

value system of those in Wyoming, and that is to be a good neighbor.

Exactly.

Good friend, good loved one, brother, sister, mother, father.

So it sounds like we need to encourage people to live by their values.

We need to encourage people to do what they would normally do, even

though this seems to be a daunting or intimidating or, or abnormal

situation that someone's suicidal.

It's really every other circumstance where they would be

inclined to reach out and help.

Coronor James Whipps: Correct.

And the bigger piece, and one of the other things I may have mentioned,

education, this needs to start very early on everybody to include your school

districts and everything are so afraid of that word that they're unwilling

to really educate our youth and tackle this early on our statistics nationwide.

Traditionally, what you were looking at was the middle

aged white male type of deal.

Now in the last Year or two in my county specifically, and I

imagine probably all overwhelming, maybe all over the United States.

That demographic has shifted.

Right now, half of my suicides are under the age of 45.

With that, and again, I get the advantage of looking back over the entirety of

this, what I'm finding is that I can see where these problems really originated

and started in the adolescence years.

Interesting.

If we could have intervened, educated, done those things during those years,

you're really at the younger level, at that demographic, we will save them in

adulthood, saving them in adolescence.

Dr Kent Corso: I see.

So there's almost this Lag effect or delay effect where the problem starts to evolve

in late childhood, early adolescence, and then it's somehow hits a tipping point

in the late twenties and early thirties.

Sure.

Coronor James Whipps: And, and what I find, and maybe this is just my

opinion is that somehow we've gotten away from focusing and teaching and

educating our youth on resiliency, coping skills, those kinds of things that.

As we all know, when you step out of that protected bubble of adolescence.

Into adulthood, where everything hits you at once, you're no longer

under that protective thumb of your parents and society and the

school system and everything else.

And now they're stepping into what we all know is the real world with no

skills to be able to manage everything that's going to hit them at once.

Like I said, we all call being an adult.

Dr Kent Corso: Unfortunately, our time is running out for this episode,

but I would love to have you back on to talk more about those solutions.

I think they're both right on target and also maybe more

achievable than people think.

Would it be okay if

Coronor James Whipps: we had you on again in the future?

Absolutely.

I'd love to do it.

Um, and like I said, uh, a lot of what I do, what I see is from the

outside looking in, but I think.

That gives me an advantage to be able to help because again, I can see big

picture, whereas the community as a whole just sees someone kill themselves.

I think I'm better positioned to be able to sometimes answer the question

as to there was a why behind it.

So the

Dr Kent Corso: what is they died by suicide.

The why is the question you're able to answer.

Because you have this different view where you're able to look from an

outside perspective at multiple cases.

And let's be honest, you also have some psychological distance from each

case because you may not know everybody personally who ends their life.

Coronor James Whipps: Nobody's ever going to know the exact why, because the

person that killed themselves is the only person that's going to know that I think

I'm, I'm able to theorize by looking at the big picture as to what made that up.

Dr Kent Corso: Well, thanks so much for being on the podcast with us.

Corner whips really appreciate all the work you're doing in your one minute

can say insights into this problem.

Take care of yourself.

So take care of your neighbor.

Be bold.

Ask the hard questions because if you don't, who will?