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FREMONT - Sixteen-year-old Joni Holland is haunted by the memory of the night, about a year ago, when her younger sister attempted suicide.

The night before, she had done the same.

She felt horrible, wretched from the previous nights attempt, whenshe overdosed on pills.But Joni went downstairs with her mother, Darla Holland, to check on her sister. Nicole, then 14, was non-responsive.

She had overdosedon pills.Nobody knew what pills Nicole took, or how many. Or what they should do.

Nicole Holland, 14, of Fremont talks about the night she took pills and almost died from a suicide attempt.

Nicole had tried to contactthree friends before taking the pills, reaching one and telling her she was going to commit suicide.

But she didnt confide in her older sister.

That hurt the most because Ive always protected her when she was scared, Joni saidas she, Nicole, and Darla sat on a couch in their Fremont home. And it was like, I cant protect my baby sister. And thats the worst thing I ever went through my whole life, knowing that I could not be there for my baby sister and that I could not protect her and stop what was happening.

The impact of suicide or attempted suicide can be devastating on a persons family, loved ones and co-workers.

Tim Wise, site director of Fremonts Firelands Recovery and Counseling Services, said friends and loved ones feel guilty when someone they care about attempts or commits suicide.

They feel as though they should have recognized what was going on and helped prevent it.

The sad reality is, sometimes people dont share the pain of whats going on in their lives, Wise said.

Unanswered questions

A suicide, or an attempt, raises more questions than it answers.

Sitting with her daughters at their Fremont home, Darla Holland said that, as an adult, she gets depressed.

But shes never attempted suicide and cannot imagine burdening others with a suicide attempt.

Holland watched her youngest daughter, Nicole, go from being sleepy and disoriented to hallucinating and eventually non-responsive after swallowing the pills.

After her two daughters attempted to commit suicide, Darla Holland said she dumped out a lot of the pills in the household. There are no more cold medicines or antihistamines in the house, she said, only prescribed medications. (Photo: Molly Corfman/The News-Messenger)

She wasn't sure what Nicole had taken or how many pills her daughter had ingested.

So she assessed her for an hour, called poison control and then took her to the hospital.

Nicole said she just remembers waking up and being in wheelchair in the hospital. Someone asked her if she could walk and she said no,she didnt think she could move her legs. She was told she needed to walk, Nicole said.

Darla remembered that her daughter kept crawling out of bed at the hospital.

Joni said Nicole showed, non-verbally. that she knew her older sister was there.

Every time I touched her hand and said her name, she had looked at me with those big wide eyes and she looked at me lovingly and she knew who I was. Even though she was delusional, she knew who I was, Joni said.

Since Nicole's suicide attempt, the sisters and their mother say they've made changes in words they use to each other and how they speak and act.

Darla said she dumped out a lot of the pills in the household. There are no more cold medicines orantihistamines in the house, she said, onlyprescribed medications.

Its too high of a risk, Darla said.

Fremont Fire Chief David Foos lost one of his firefighters to suicide. "He and I were in contact every shift seeing how things were going," Foos recalled. (Photo: Molly Corfman/The News-Messenger)

Ripple effect

When someone commits suicide, law enforcement and emergency responders are often the first ones on the scene. They're the ones who have to give family members and loved ones the crushing news.

Fremont Fire Chief David Foos said people dont understand the deep impact and ripple effect a suicide has on immediate family and first responders.

You dont understand unless youve been through it, he said.

Fremont Police Det. Jason Kiddey said hes personally dealt with suicidal subjects and has been to a lot of suicide scenes. Within the past year, Kiddey said he responded to a suicide where a man took his life with a firearm.

It can stay with you over the years, he said.

Its tough for officers to give death notifications to family members under those circumstances, Kiddey said.

The family often demands to know why their loved one would end their lives.

Foos still thinks about the firefighter in his department and his cousin, a former Fremont police officer, who committed suicide. He also had a good friend commit suicide.

The circumstances were different and the suicides took place several years apart, but Foos knows the anniversaries of their deaths and has a hard time on those days.

With the three people he knew and had close ties to, Foos wishes they had reached out to him or somebody else for help.

If any one of them had said, Hey, I could use a hand, people would have been jumping up to help them, Foos said.

Assistant Fire Chief Dean Schneider got a frantic phone call from his mother one night. She said Schneiders uncle, who lived in Westlake, was in a Lowe's parking lot in Sandusky and had threatened to take his own life. Molly Corfman/The News-Messenger

An uncle's desperate act

Assistant Fire Chief Dean Schneider got a frantic phone call from his mother one night.She said Schneiders uncle, who lived in Westlake,was in a Lowe's parking lot in Sandusky and had threatened to take his own life.

The uncle used to stop in atthe Fremont Fire Departments central headquarters all the time, Schneider said, and never gave any indication that something was wrong.

Schneider's mothers called the Perkins Township Police Department about her brother in law, who ran into an outdoor storage shed when he saw police coming.

Before an officer could reach him, there was a loud bang. His uncle had committed suicide.

So my mom calls me back in tears, sobbing that Uncle Bruce is gone, Schneider said.

What Schneider knows of his uncles final hours is limited.

The uncle, who had four siblingsincluding Schneiders father,went to a funeral in Port Clinton, then made his own funeral arrangements for reasons never completely clear to the family, Schneider said.

Schneiders uncle returned to Westlake and had an argument with his wife about making the funeral arrangements.

He decided to drive to Sandusky, and stopped on the way to buy a gun at a gun store.He left a note on the seat of his car.

That was it, Schneider said.

Schneider said he doesnt know if his uncle had health issues.

When he came through Fremont, Uncle Bruce used to drop off spice samples at the fire department, Schneider said, and he and other firefighters used the spices for cookouts and barbecues.

It was rough on everybody, just because I think it was so unexpected. To my knowledge, my uncle never talked to anyone about it, Schneider said.

He and the rest of the family were left to cope with the questions of why.

dacarson@gannett.com 419-334-1046 Twitter@DanielCarson7

mcorfman@gannett.com 419-334-1052 Twitter: @mollycorfman

ABOUT THE SERIES

Although many people don't want to talk about it, suicides and attempted suicides are a grim reality and a growing problem in Sandusky and Ottawa counties. Hotlines receive desperate calls for help every day, and emergency responders are dealing with increasing numbers of people on the verge of taking their own lives.

For this three-part series, The News-Messenger spoke to dozens of residents, mental health officials and police officers to shine a light on the dark and often overlooked crisis of suicide.

Help with mental health/suicideissues

NAMI crisis hotline 800-826-1306

Mental Health & Recovery Board of Erie and Ottawa Counties- (419) 627-1908/1-800-627-4999

Mental Health& Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties- (419) 448-0640

Continued here:
Loved ones left with questions - Fremont News Messenger