If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, please call or text 988 to be connected to a crisis counselor free of charge 24/7. 

In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, high school student Samhar Almomani was simply trying to survive in a country where being gay means a person could be targeted, arrested and harassed by government forces. 

But during his senior year in Jordan, Almomani said he was publicly outed by a teacher to his family, and he spiraled into a mental health crisis. 

“Nights blurred into another as I planned my own death, thinking it might be the only way to ease the pain for myself and erase the shame for my family,” Almomani shared. “The only hope keeping me going was the college applications I filled out as I dreamt of what could be.” 

Almomani credits Elizabethtown College, where he got his bachelor’s degree in 2024, with saving his life. Once accepted as a student in 2020, he got access to counseling services, immigration assistance, food services and a support system. 

Now, he’s pursuing his master’s in public health at George Washington University to give the same help he desperately needed only a few years ago. 

“That’s what pushed me into this line of work … to make sure that others have the same opportunities,” Almomani said. 

He’s also a board member of the Suicide Prevention Alliance, which shares education and resources alongside its legislative advocacy. Last Thursday, the organization spearheaded an event to discuss suicide prevention, highlighting work across the commonwealth and survivors. 

Just under 2,000 Pennsylvanians die by suicide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jenna Baker, the CEO of the American Association of Suicidology, said that the national suicide rate today is 32% higher than it was in 2000 and is a leading cause of death for those between the ages of 15 and 34. 

“We want to make sure that we see suicide prevention as far more dynamic than the answer is (involuntary commitments) or medication. We need to create communities where people belong, and we need to realize that our state policies shape that,” Baker continued. 

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She previously served as the commonwealth’s mental health policy director under the Department of Human Services. Like others, she pushed for better investment into the state’s behavioral health system alongside increased reimbursements for specialized services.

“It’s really the job of our state legislature and our governor to make meaningful, systemic change. So that when someone reaches out for help, they’re getting the right help for who they are,” Baker added. “Because what a veteran needs is different than what a police officer needs, which is different than what an LGBTQ youth needs or a Black youth.”

All four of the above populations have a higher rate of suicide than the general population. 

Someone to call: The importance of 988

The federal government launched 988 as the new number for the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in 2022, with more than 17,000 calls for help in the commonwealth reported in the last month.

Pennsylvania has 14 call centers distributed around the state to answer those calls, according to Matthew Wintersteen, whose organization Prevent Suicide Pennsylvania has a state contract to oversee behind-the-scenes operations and collect data. 

As the board chair, Wintersteen said the hotline has evolved over the years and contact rates have grown as more people become aware of its existence. In the early days, some call centers only wanted to answer requests for help within a specific geographic area, meaning other parts of the state would need to rely on the national backup queue. 

Suicide prevention efforts are lacking in Pa. and other states amid federal cuts

“That backup quene could be seven, eight, nine minutes sometimes before someone would answer … (and) there were plenty of people across Pennsylvania that were reaching out at the time to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and requesting support,” Wintersteen continued. “As you can imagine, somebody in a mental health crisis waiting seven minutes for someone to answer the call is not necessarily the most helpful.” 

The state has better coverage now, answering nearly 90% of calls in-state. Using georouting, people in crisis can call and will be pinged off of the nearest cell tower — giving an approximate location that doesn’t reveal their exact whereabouts as a privacy protection. 

Before georouting, calls were matched using their phone number’s area code, so someone living in the commonwealth with an out-of-state number wasn’t connected to local resources.

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Getting to a 100% call answer rate is unlikely, since many callers abandon their call within seconds of dialing the number, but Wintersteen said the state strove to get to 95%. The most recent budget included $10 million for 988 to achieve that goal, while also bringing their response rate for texts and chats closer to 90%.

“Our in-state answer rate for text and chat has historically been pretty low, because that is the one service that when 988 went live, the volume dramatically increased at a rate that was considerably higher than … projections,” Wintersteen added. “We want to make sure that everybody in Pennsylvania who is asking for help, regardless of which of those three methods they use, is getting the help that they need as quickly as they need.” 

Pennsylvanians can also still call their county-based phone number for mental health services. Some counties contract with the same call centers used to provide 988.

Suicide prevention at the county level

Heather McLean, the outreach coordinator for Mental Health America of Southwestern Pennsylvania, is part of Westmoreland County’s first-ever Suicide Fatality Review Board — believed to be one of just a few such committees in the state. 

The year-old group analyzes the factors leading up to each of the 11 area suicides in the last 12 months, identifying areas for improvement. 

“There’s a lot of people in different settings and situations that fall through the cracks and that’s what we’re really trying to (identify) — those missed opportunities and how we can better work in our community so we don’t have so many missed opportunities,” McLean added.

Members include mental health professionals like herself as well as health care providers, drug and alcohol addiction specialists and local law enforcement. After analyzing the circumstances around a few rural deaths, she and others made a concentrated effort to connect with local farmers.

“We got little cow stress balls. We got little hot-cold packs that were corn stalks … that said, ‘Do you need an ear to listen to?’” McLean said about items printed to include mental health crisis resources and distributed at local events. “And there’s more work to be done.” 

At the local casino, group members placed informational flyers after identifying people who “excessively” gambled prior to their deaths. But McLean noted that other initiatives might require more coordination, pointing to the need for suicide prevention services for veterans. 

“Westmoreland County has a very high veteran population — what can we do better in engaging them?” McLean added. 

But low pay, burnout and the stress of jobs pushes many people out, even as demand grows. McLean, who has worked in suicide prevention for 25 years, says, “it happens a lot.”

When asked why she continues despite the obstacles, she pointed to her faith and the people left behind by suicide. 

“I see so many people and meet so many families. There’s a mom … and I never thought I’d ever see her smile again,” McLean said. “(One day) I looked over and she had the biggest smile on her face, and I thought, ‘This is what it’s about. Just helping that one person.’”