As a doctor who works in a pediatric intensive care unit, I take care of a lot of extremely sick children. Typically, when a patient is memorable, it is because they have unusual symptoms or a rare illness or injury. But lately there have been several patients who haunt me because of their similarity.
Over the last decade of my career, I have seen a dramatic increase in children and teens who try to harm themselves. They have the same haunted look, the same worried parents, the same palpable sense of despair. I have seen children as young as 9 try to kill themselves. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for those ages 10 to 24.
And if a child with mental health issues lives in a home with access to a firearm, especially one that is not stored safely, their chances of dying from suicide increases fourfold. Firearms are by far the most lethal method of suicide attempts, so most of those patients do not even make it to pediatric intensive care.
