Note: If you or a loved one is experiencing a suicidal, substance use, and/or mental health crisis, dial 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Prevention lifeline and trained crisis counselors.

For the second year in a row, a Montesano man hopes to raise awareness for suicide — and the tools to prevent it — with a pair of events this autumn.

Patrick Cobb, a reservist Army chaplain and pastor at Montesano Presbyterian Church, is implementing a Suicide Prevention Program 2023, featuring a 5K run on Sept. 9 and a suicide prevention workshop on Aug. 22 and 23, with potentially more to follow.

About 150 people showed up for last year’s 5K run for suicide prevention and awareness, and Cobb, who has delivered suicide prevention flyers and signs as far as Ocean Shores and Westport, hopes that number will grow this year.

“The biggest problem with addressing suicide is getting people to talk about it,” Cobb said in an interview. “Nobody wants to talk about it.”

Cobb is part of the 7,451 medical operations unit out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the largest medical corps in the Pacific Northwest, according to Cobb.

When he moved to Montesano from Texas three years ago, he noticed the way suicide affected the town and other communities across Grays Harbor County, where the suicide rate was about one-third higher than the state average over the course of the last decade, according to 2021 data from the Washington State Department of Health.

During his 15 years as an Army chaplain, Cobb has buried 61 people who took their own life, he said.

Those 15 years also gave him the tools to help curb the trend, and he wants to share the tools with the public.

His two-day August workshop will train participants in both ACE (Ask Care Escort) and ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training), tactics used both in public health efforts to prevent suicide and as official training for Army chaplains. Cobb said those workshops are usually “pricey,” but he’s able to provide them at no-cost through funding from a local foundation.

“The cool thing about both the training and the 5k is everything’s free,” Cobb said.

Cobb said the prevention programs are similar to the “Stay Safe For Now” principle: “Once the person agrees to staying safe, you open the door to aid and help in the community,” he wrote in a recent newsletter.

He also said a key tool in suicide crisis intervention is the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which provides 24/7 counseling and support for people or loved ones of those in crisis. The lifeline, activated last year, is a federally funded project through the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Cobb, who called the 988 lifeline “one of the best nationwide counseling programs the mental health world has developed,” said he wants to work to develop more counseling services in Montesano for people who get referrals from the 988 line, noting that many people might have to travel to Olympia or Seattle for services.

“Individuals who are experiencing severe emotional distress may need a range of services,” Cobb wrote in a newsletter. “A full continuum of care includes not only hotlines and helplines but also mobile crisis teams, walk-in crisis clinics, hospital-based psychiatric emergency services, and peer-support programs, as well as churches.”

Cobb said he hopes to conduct more suicide prevention trainings each month. His workshop on Aug. 22 and 23 will take place at the Montesano Presbyterian Church at 210 E. McBryde Ave., from 6 to 8 p.m. each night. The classes are limited to 12 participants per night. To register, visit suicideawarenesstraining1.rsvpify.com and suicideawarenesstraining2.rsvpify.com.

The 5K run and walk will start at 8 a.m. at the Montesano Presbyterian Church on Saturday, Sept. 9. To register visit 2023suicidepreventionssp.rsvpify.com.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.