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Possible suicide crashes concern Clark County safety, health experts

Springfield News-Sun (Ohio) - 4/9/2016

April 09--SPRINGFIELD -- Four times in the past year someone has driven the wrong-way on a local highway in what investigators believe is a string of suicides, not only killing themselves but also endangering or killing others.

Statewide an overall spike in wrong-way highway crashes has occurred, with more deaths so far in 2016 than all of 2014, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Alcohol impairment is the main culprit in most of these crashes, but health and safety officials are concerned by the number of recent incidents that appear to be intentional.

Lt. Brian Aller of the Ohio State Patrol Springfield Post has overseen two investigations on I-70 in Clark County in the past 12 months in which drivers died after travelling the wrong-way and colliding with semi trucks. One of those crashes was ruled a suicide and the other remains under investigation.

"When you want to include someone else who has nothing to do with your problems or your life and basically scar them for life, I just, I think that's wrong," he said.

Mental health professionals are concerned about these deaths as well, especially as they come amid an upward trend in all suicides.

Many people don't think of a car as a potential danger when someone they know is expressing suicidal thoughts, said Greta Mayer, CEO of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Clark, Greene and Madison counties. But she said access to driving should be cut off just like weapons or drugs when someone is in an emotional crisis and help sought.

Anyone experiencing any type of emotional upset shouldn't drive, said Curt Gillespie, director of Mental Health Services for Clark County, because it could escalate into a dangerous situation.

"Deal with your crisis before you get behind the wheel a car," he said.

Numerous lives lost

When 35-year-old Christopher Coleman of Xenia died in a fiery wrong-way crash on I-70 in Enon last April, traffic safety experts told the Springfield News-Sun that crash was an anomaly because he drove head-on into a tractor trailer intentionally.

Most wrong-way crashes on the interstate are the result of drunk or confused drivers getting on exits the wrong way, data shows, and motor vehicle deaths accounted for just 0.4 percent of all U.S. suicides in 2014.

Clark County had 22 suicide deaths in 2015 and Coleman's was the only one using a motor vehicle.

But now there have been three more possibly intentional crashes on I-70 and I-75 in the past two months resulting in seven deaths.

--On Feb. 12, James Pohlabeln struck head-on a sports utility vehicle on I-75 in Dayton, killing Pohlabeln; Kyle Canter and Earl Miller II, both of New Carlisle; Vashti Nicole Brown of Dayton; and Devin Bachmann of Huber Heights.

Pohlabeln had reportedly threatened suicide in the past and made statements about harming himself at a bar the night of the crash.

"It broke my heart," said Justin Neace, a friend of the band mates killed. "They were good people to know."

As he grieves he now wonders what he would do if a wrong-way driver came at him.

"That guy ... I've heard a lot that he was basically on a suicide mission," Neace said.

--On March 10, Christy Lakins of New Carlisle died after driving the wrong-way eastbound on I-70 near Ohio 41 about 5 a.m. and crashing into a semi-tractor trailer. An investigation into the crash is ongoing but the initial facts indicated it may have been intentional.

Truck driver Milo Hatfield of Indianapolis and his wife were uninjured, but he's so affected that he can't talk too much about it.

"I tried to swerve and give her a way to go," he said. "I was hoping she would do that."

Instead witnesses reported Lakins adjusted in the same direction.

"The impact was so dynamic," Hatfield said. "It was just an instant feeling that, you know, whoever is in that car wasn't going to make it."

He believes if he hadn't been hauling a full load, he and his wife could have been injured.

On the 9-1-1 call, Hatfield is shaken and tries to comfort Lakins.

"She was moving when I first got to her but I don't think she's going to make it," he said to the dispatcher. Then to Lakins he said, "Just hold on. Don't go nowhere. Just hold on."

--On March 28, Wallace Ratliff of Springfield is suspected to have killed himself by driving the wrong-way on I-70 in Madison County. He was seen by witnesses running into the eastbound lanes before re-entering his vehicle and driving the wrong way on the westbound side. Within seconds he drove into a concrete pillar under U.S. 42 and died.

A trooper at the scene said it appeared Ratliff never braked.

"It looks like it was intentional, based on what happened," Aller said.

Authorities aren't sure if any of these crashes, if intentional, could be "copy cat" suicides. But they said it's possible that news coverage could influence someone.

"Somebody who's not real stable could choose that because of the sensationalism," Clark County Coroner Richard Marsh said.

Preventing wrong-way driving

Intentional wrong-way driving remains rare, according to safety experts.

Studies by the National Transportation Safety Board and state patrols have consistently found the same trends when it comes to wrong-way drivers.

More than half of the drivers are under the influence of alcohol or drugs and drivers older than 70 are over-represented. The majority of the crashes happen at night on interstates and tend to take place in the passing lane closest to the median.

Although they represent a fraction of total crashes -- 0.1 percent of Ohio crashes in 2015 -- wrong-way collisions on highways are 100 times more deadly, consistently accounting for about 1 percent of traffic fatalities statewide.

And the number of wrong-way crashes is on the rise while total U.S. traffic deaths have fallen.

"I'm sure that it's happened through the years but it seems to be an accelerating trend," said ODOT Director Jerry Wray following the Madison County crash.

In Ohio 553 wrong-way or wrong-side crashes occurred in 2015, according to Department of Public Safety data. That's up from 467 in 2014 and 446 in 2013.

The wrong-way crashes on interstates are the deadliest. In 2014 Ohio saw 47 such crashes with seven fatalities, according to ODOT. Comparable numbers for 2015 weren't available, but so far in 2016, the state has seen 12 wrong-way highway crashes with 16 fatalities and 10 injuries.

Aller called these high-speed crashes "horrendous."

Detecting and stopping a wrong-way driver is difficult, he said. The local crashes have occurred within 10 to 15 seconds of the driver entering the interstate.

"Even we can't prevent some of those crashes," he said.

A state trooper was posted along I-70 westbound in Madison County on the evening of March 28 and saw Ratliff's car travelling the wrong way but didn't have time to react.

"It was seconds," Aller said."It's something like the worst case scenario of a crash -- you have a car coming at you, you have two cars beside you. What do you do? Where do you go?"

Driver warning systems considered

Wrong-way driving has become so common in Germany, especially on the Autobahn network, that they have a word for it.

Geisterfahrer translates to "ghost driver," and a radio alert system was created to warn drivers based on sensors.

Last year auto supplier Bosch announced it was developing a cloud-based system that would get alerts to drivers via their navigation devices.

Bosch's news release about the technology, reportedly available sometime this year, said 2,000 ghost driver radio warnings are broadcast on German radio each year. But they can take several minutes to go out, often coming too late.

Ohio has worked with SpeedInfo, a company developing sensors to detect wrong-way drivers. But a pilot program is on hold because the technology isn't reliable enough.

Any plan involving installing sensors may be cost prohibitive, Aller said, because of the number of highway miles in the state.

"All we can do and what we are doing is trying to improve our signage, make sure there is plenty of warning," said Wray from ODOT. That includes more and better-placed "Do Not Enter" and "Wrong Way" signs.

"As well as, get the word out to the motoring public that this is something that they need to be aware of," he said, and Ohio is talking to other state's to find any best practices.

Clark County Combined Health Department spokeswoman Anita Biles attended the Lifesavers traffic safety conference in California last week, where wrong-way driving, including suicides, was discussed.

"There's a basic understanding that this is going on across the country," she said. But beyond improving signs or installing sensors, there isn't a lot of encouraging progress. "We all kind of left a little frustrated."

Several states presented on warning systems they're trying, including Rhode Island, which is spending $2 million to upgrade signs at 200 plus ramps and to install a detection system at 24 high-risk locations. The detection system will notify state police and trigger displays on overhead message signs to warn other drivers.

Biles said that idea has limited usefulness because digital signs are spread out. Clark County only has two on nearly 30 miles of interstate.

Suicide by car may be under reported

Local health experts warned that it's probably premature to label the recent spate of possibly intentional wrong-way crashes a trend.

"They're so few and far apart that it's hard to say," Marsh said.

Suicide rates nationwide have been steadily increasing for more than a decade, a trend mirrored in Clark County where emergency calls for suicides or suicide attempts have increased more than 35 percent since 2012.

Marsh hasn't issued a final report on the February crash that killed Lakins, but has been investigating her background as well as toxicology.

Determining a driver's state of mind can be impossible, Marsh said.

"The incidence of suicide could be a whole lot higher, maybe, if we knew whether all those single-car crashes were suicides or whether they were accidents," he said.

Experts know that suicides are often committed with the most readily available weapon or method.

"(A car) is the most available source," for many people, Gillespie said. Crashing into something is such an impulsive act, it could signify someone who was having a temporary emotional crisis and made a quick decision.

That's different than someone who has suffered long-term depression or mental illness and who often make a plan, Gillespie said.

"With drugs and alcohol, people are a lot more impulsive," Marsh said. "And if somebody's driving and something is on their mind, the most immediate thing to do if you want to be suicidal and you're impulsive is to crash into something."

Unfortunately that means there may not be many warning signs to indicate intent and rule the crash a suicide, Marsh said.

"There are some crashes you just never can tell," he said.

That ambiguity may actually be part of the attraction to this method, experts said.

A 1962 study on auto accidents, suicide and alcoholism that's still widely cited by researchers today found that many people with self-destructive inclinations may attempt to injure themselves through car accidents without their intent being known.

Gillespie knows of one individual who survived an intentional car crash and later admitted he hoped if he died that way his family could still collect insurance money.

A study conducted by Wright State researchers in 2010 found that there wasn't any correlation between past suicide attempts and reckless driving or crashes.

"In comparing those with versus those without a past history of suicide attempt, we found no statistically significant differences with regard to moving violations or automobile/motorcycle accidents, suggesting that drivers with such histories are not an overt danger to others," the authors wrote.

But they found that people who self-reported previous suicide attempts were more likely to have had certain types of traffic violations, including driving while intoxicated.

"In other words, substance abuse, rather than reckless driving, may be the key denominator with regard to carelessness about one's own survival," the report says.

Safety experts and the data agree, the key to preventing these deadly situations is to keep impaired drivers off the road and to immediately get help for anyone showing warning signs of suicide.

If you see warning signs or someone expresses that they wish to kill themselves, the best course of action is to stay with them until getting them professional help by calling 9-1-1 or taking them to an emergency room, Mayer said.

"The key for someone who has a suicide risk is to get them monitored," she said.

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