Phoenix-area teen suicide spike at start of school year

By Nicole Crites

Click here for updates on this story

    CHANDLER, Arizona (KPHO, KTVK) — Since the start of the school year, we have been tracking a concerning handful of teen suicides and attempts at Valley high schools. There were more suicides last year across America than any other year on record. It’s the second leading cause of death for 10–14-year-olds.

The Arizona Department of Health Services has an online dashboard tracking suicide deaths and attempts or ER visits, showing kids 17 and under are the No. 1 group for suicide attempts this year, with 9,085 hospitalizations for attempts year to date. “Unfortunately, this year, we’re off to a rocky start,” said Valley teen mental health advocate Katey McPherson.

We caught up with a Chandler couple that’s refusing to let their son’s fleeting choice be the end of his story. Ryder Lower played lacrosse since he had a pacifier. He got so good he was varsity captain sophomore year and was being courted by college recruiters. “He was very intelligent,” his mom, Taryn Lower, said. “He was a great kid, got good grades and had friends and a social life,” said his dad, Gene Lower, who is the team photographer for the Arizona Cardinals.

Now, photographs and memories are all he and his wife have left. “We are going to have this heartache forever,” she said. Ryder died of suicide on Aug. 11, one month before his 17th birthday. “He was always quiet, but then he got real quiet,” Taryn Lower said.

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 8 years old, Ryder required daily insulin but managed it well, becoming a junior ambassador and advocate. His later diagnosis of clinical depression at 14 turned more serious. “I just thought, ‘something is wrong here. I know it,’ so I said, ‘We’re going to the doctor.’ And I just begged him to be honest. He was needing help severely,” Taryn Lower said.

Gene Lower saw him change through his lens in pictures, no longer the genuine smiling face he was used to seeing. “It was like, he’s present, but it’s not him,” Gene Lower said.

“I remember the pediatrician saying, ‘This is a pandemic with teen boys!” Taryn Lower said. They took immediate action, getting Ryder into inpatient care, following up with intensive therapy and medication, and even switching to a smaller school for his junior year at Arizona College Prep. “He just wasn’t excited about life, and it was hard to get him motivated,” Taryn Lower said.

They were both home the day it happened and said nothing seemed out of the ordinary, that he came downstairs to change his insulin pump a mere 20 minutes before they found him. “It was kind of like a normal Friday afternoon,” Gene Lower said, “I was asking him about his plans for the evening. I was getting ready for work, showered and was literally minutes from leaving. And I went to his room.” “We tried to save him. Obviously, we tried. We knew,” Taryn Lower said. But Ryder was already gone.

“20% of our high school population is sitting in class and thinking about this,” said McPherson. She gets calls or texts about teens in crisis every day. She’s on the AZDHS Adolescent Suicide Prevention Workgroup, tracking three Valley suicides and one attempt on campus since the start of the school year. All teen boys, 15-17, who seemed well-liked.

She says parents get to decide whether to disclose and when they do, it helps schools address what kids are already talking about. “And the science really leans on triaging the entire school,” McPherson said.

She just helped with a post-vention online Zoom to help parents start the conversation at home and is supporting the Hope Institute, which opens this week in the Chandler Unified School District. It’s a first-of-its-kind on-campus suicide crisis intervention center after four teens took their lives there last year. “We want to get them seen within 48 hours, or less than that if we can,” said lead clinician Lindsay Taylor.

“Not talking about it is a lethal hazard to our students,” said McPherson.

Taryn and Gene Lower say there’s nothing they wouldn’t have done to save their son. They hope sharing their story will inspire anyone struggling right now to pause and take it one day at a time like they’re being forced to. Because while it might feel impossible to see your way out of whatever valley you’re in, there’s nothing too heavy if you find someone to trust and lean on. “That is really hard to live with because you just think in your head the whole time you’re thinking, what was in his head?” Taryn Lower said. “Well, we’ll never know,” said Gene Lower. He doesn’t want his son’s last choice to be the end of his story. And it won’t.

Ryder’s older sister, Skylar Lower, who just left for college on a beach volleyball scholarship, will be wearing his number this season to honor him.

Ryder was an organ donor, so parts of him live on now in more than 30 strangers, having donated everything from his vital organs and tissue to his eyes. “Being a photographer, that’s kind of everything to me. Knowing that someone else can view the world through his eyes is special because I believe he really did see the world in a positive way,” Gene Lower said.

The Hope Institute opens Wednesday in Chandler, staffed with licensed clinicians at Perry High School. Also Wednesday, there’s a free event for parents, students and families to hear from a teen survivor firsthand. Emma Benoit was a high school cheerleader who immediately regretted trying to take her life.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.