Suicide and Attempted Suicide: Methods and Consequences

Each year in the United States 30,000 people kill themselves. Each year, too, almost half a million survive suicide attempts. Of these, 19,000 are permanently disabled. Only about one in fifteen attempts is actually fatal. Most who attempt suicide do not want to die.Yet many people who do not intend to kill themselves nevertheless do. They are ignorant of the likelihood that their "gesture" will succeed. Some expect rescuers to save them. Few understand how dangerous their chosen method is, or the consequences of its failure. The purposes of this book are to decrease the ignorance that leads to terrible unintended consequences; to help identify the would-be suicides, such as teenagers, who can be successfully helped; and to better understand why people attempt to end their lives. In the absence of knowledge about suicide methods -- and, importantly, about alternatives to suicide -- people act in desperation and ignorance. The methods people use, all too often, leave them neither dead nor able to recover, but maimed and Permanently injured. That is the reality. Geo Stone also discusses the following subjects: - The psychological makeup of suicidal people - The ways to prevent suicide - The comfort care and hospice care available for those who disable themselves - Medical systems available for the terminally ill - The issues surrounding assisted suicide