Senator's bill seeks to breach suicide secrecy

Colorado teen's death behind attempt to provide info to parents, others

April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 13, 2006 at midnight

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A year before Patrick McKee headed to college, Arapahoe High School honored him for talking a buddy out of committing suicide.

He saved a friend, but he couldn't save himself.

On Dec. 23, 2004, 19-year-old Patrick found a gun at his parents' home, slipped into his car and shot himself.

He had developed deep depression his freshman year at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., miles away from the eyes of his parents.

"Little did any of us know that Patrick was experiencing pain and severe depression," said Dick McKee, Patrick's father, who owns a development firm in downtown Denver.

"Like most freshmen, when he left for college, he seemed both excited and apprehensive. Through our conversations with him three to four times a week, he seemed happy and content while in Lynn."

Patrick's suicide is at the heart of a bill sponsored by Sen. Deanna Hanna, D-Lakewood, that would allow college students to sign a consent form to waive their privacy rights under federal law.

Senate Bill 67, scheduled to be heard in committee this week, would allow students to grant Colorado colleges and universities permission to notify a parent, friend, professor or anyone they so designate if officials believe the student is considering suicide or may be a danger to himself or herself.

"There were signs that Patrick had slipped into a state of severe depression while he was at college, but the college didn't call his parents or share the information because federal privacy laws prevent them from doing so," Hanna said. "This bill is to make sure we prevent a similar incident, if possible, from happening here in Colorado."

Across the nation, colleges and universities are bound by the federal Health Information Patient Privacy Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Under both laws, colleges and universities are not allowed to share with parents even the simplest information about their children - grades, health records or class attendance - without a student's written permission.

"The student is still essentially a child at 18," said McKee's sister-in-law, Rosalind Kurita, a state senator in Tennessee. "It's not right that a parent paying the bill should be denied information regarding the well-being of their own child."

Patrick's death became the catalyst for a similar bill that Kurita successfully sponsored in Tennessee.

By all accounts, Patrick was a popular, personable and outgoing teenager. He didn't exhibit any outward signs of depression, his father said. But something changed in 2004.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, a close friend said Patrick walked into his dorm crying, with self-inflicted cuts on his arms and hips, McKee said.

The following day, his friend told her psychology professor about the cuts and about Patrick's state of mind. She also told counseling officials, McKee said.

At every turn, McKee said, she was told that the university could not notify his parents because of federal confidentiality laws.

Instead, a university counselor left a note on Patrick's dorm room door, inviting him to stop by any time if he wanted to talk.

"Lynn University failed to take Patrick's cry for help seriously," McKee said as he shed tears and clutched his son's photo. "When a child is in this state of mind, it should not be expected that he will voluntarily seek help by walking into a counseling center."

Lynn University officials said federal privacy laws prevent them from commenting on Patrick's situation. But his suicide prompted the university to seek legislation in Florida similar to Hanna's bill in Colorado.

"The university is aware of this legislation (SB 67) and is working with the McKee family in its efforts to allow colleges and universities to make certain information available to parents, which we currently cannot provide due to restrictions placed upon us by various federal and state laws," Donald E. Ross, president of Lynn University, wrote in a statement.

Hanna and the McKee family say Patrick's death serves as an example of the growing problem of suicide on college campuses and why parental involvement is critical.

Michele McKinney, spokeswoman for the University of Colorado, said CU and other state colleges have worked with Hanna on the bill.

Schools support the effort, but they also must be careful they don't open themselves up to lawsuits, she said.

"It's a really fine line," McKinney said. "There have been recent efforts on our campus to promote suicide awareness."

CU submitted a grant proposal in 2005 to the Colorado Office of Suicide Prevention that included statistics showing that suicide among adolescents has tripled in the past 60 years. That makes it the third-leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds and the second-leading cause of death among college-age students.

An estimated 1,088 suicides occur on college campuses each year, and data from the American College of Health Association show that 9.4 percent of the 16,000 college students surveyed have "seriously contemplated suicide."

"College is a time when you're testing a lot of things and you're developing and expanding who you are as an individual," said Shawn Worthy, a psychologist and professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. "Your teen years are a difficult time, particularly when you're faced with the lack of parental guidance for the first time."

Awareness and education is equally as important as legislation, he said. Parents and others on college campuses must learn to recognize the signs of depression and suicidal behavior, said Worthy and other mental health experts.

The highest onset of severe depression and bipolar disease, two leading causes of suicide, occurs between the ages of 18 and 21, said Shannon Breitzman, program director of suicide prevention for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Compared with other states, Colorado ranks high in suicides - 16.3 for every 100,000 residents. The teen suicide rate is 15.7 for every 100,000 residents, according to state data.

"When teens go off to college, it's really a critical time," Breitzman said. "Some campuses have excellent mental health centers and some don't have them at all.

"It's important to note any drastic change in behavior," she said. "If a kid does well, and all of the sudden he's sleeping all the time, losing weight or cutting himself, that's a sign that something is wrong."

washingtonam@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5086

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