He had a name, and a face
Loow's suicide victim revealed
He had a name, and a face
Rest in peace, Zal Chapgar, the 23-year-old who jumped to his death from a Philadelphia highrise hotel on Monday:
He had been suffering from depression and mental illness for the last year, his family said. Because he was an adult, their ability to help him find the treatment he needed was limited.
"It was so hard for us to get him help," his sister, Jasmine, said. "Everything was a struggle."
Police are calling his death a suicide.
Chapgar was a champion wrestler and played lacrosse and football, and displayed a competitive intellect to match. His friends recall being dazzled by the heady concepts he'd want to explore and the irrepressible drive with which he pursued them.
One important side to this story. Chapgar's suicide only received coverage in the newspaper because of longstanding -- and possibly outdated -- journalistic rules. The guidelines haven't changed much since I entered daily journalism 27 years ago: Suicides only make the paper if they involve famous people or a highly public death, which is what happened in the case of Chapgar, who lept from the top of Loews Philadelphia Hotel onto a busy street in Center City. (Increasingly, and sadly, we've seen some coverage of teen suicides as well.)
But the truth is that there are far too many Zal Chapgars in the world -- taleneted and promising everyday people, brought down needlessly by the scourges of mental illness and depression. Most victims who succumb die alone, and unpublicized, and the culmulative result is a lack of public awareness over how serious this problem -- which rips so many families apart -- remains in America.
Compare public concern about mental illness to our sky-high level of political awareness and debate about crime and murder, when so much of the local pages of the newspaper are filled with the bloody shootings of the day. When we have a mayoral race here in Philadelphia, the candidates are bombarded with questions about crime rates and gun control. Mental health programs? Not so much.
But depression actually kills more Americans before their time than a bullet does -- a lot more. In 2004, researchers say that 32,439 Americans died by suicide and that as many as 90 percent were the result of factors like mental illness and substance abuse. That same year, the murder tally in the United States was almost exactly half of that -- 16,137.
We can all agree that families are entitled to their privacy if they desire it -- which is the understandable primary reason the media tended to avoid such stories for so long. But times change -- we live in a more open world, and I've seen a lot of people over the last couple of years who've written articles or taken to the blogs to write about loved ones, people who desperately wanted to talk, who wanted to share their loss with others who've suffered the same ordeals.
The Philadelphia media did a good job telling the sad story of Zal Chapgar, but only because of the horrific facts of his death and the public reaction. How many more Zal Chapgars are out there silently waiting for help?
Poor kid. RIP— Wolfgang- This sucks. I did not know him but he seemed likeable and hard working. It is really sad for the human family to lose such a great member. Please, if you're feeling depressed, talk to someone. Get help! More people love you than you realize.— Radioheadless
- You are so right. We do not treat depression and anxiety as a health condition. People who suffer from it are treated like they are not strong enough or are stupid, which is so far from the truth. Our own medical doctors have similar attitudes. I have a family member who is a physician and when a friend was suffering from depression he stated that she was a nut case and needs to wise up. I told him a thing or two, but it did not and will not change his perception of people who suffer from this. May this young man rest in internal peace.— Pooh
- You are so right. We do not treat depression and anxiety as a health condition. People who suffer from it are treated like they are not strong enough or are stupid, which is so far from the truth. Our own medical doctors have similar attitudes. I have a family member who is a physician and when a friend was suffering from depression he stated that she was a nut case and needs to wise up. I told him a thing or two, but it did not and will not change his perception of people who suffer from this. May this young man rest in internal peace.— Pooh
- I'm a caretaker for someone with mental illness. Fortunately, he has been able to arrange for government benefits: very comprehensive health insurance, food stamps and some $600 per month in social security disability payments. Also fortunately, he has family able and willing to give him support in accessing available services and obtaining everything else he needs to remain out of the hospital and relatively stable. However, the mental system infrastructure is insufficient, unfortunately - even if people are accessing government financial support - to deal with those without supportive and capable family to pick up the slack. The services which are available are minimal, overwhelmed and understaffed, and extremely difficult to navigate. I'm extremely grateful for the government services my family member does get, but there are countries with extensive social safety nets that effectively provide services for the mentally ill who are not fortunate enough to have family that is willing and able to take up the slack. In the long run, we all wind up paying in terms of our quality of life for our collective refusal to pony up and fund better mental health services.— Talking point sleuth
- Where are the wingnuts now, who criticized Bunch yesterday for writing about this story?— AHiredGun
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It would be a real tragedy if help was available and he wanted it but couldn't afford it. The way we treat those with mentally illness in this country is a shame.
"The way we treat those with mentally illness in this country is a shame." Look, I feel bad for the kid and his family, but how is this the country's fault? I know there's a universal healthcare agenda here, but we can't afford that, and we can't help everybody through all the trials and tribulations of life. People are going to have problems they have to fight through. Unfortunately this troubled kid didn't make it, but stop making every issue a failure of American society.— jmc- jmc. For every dollar we don't pay in taxes to create comprehensive mental health services we continue to encounter higher crime rates, higher suicide rates, higher homeless populations, etc. No system will effectively service everyone, with any system tragedies occur, but when you say that we "can't afford" to provide better services, you are also saying that you feel the costs don't outweigh the benefits of creating better systems. I disagree.— Talking point sleuth
- Comment removed.
- Comment removed.
- See, it's important to spend billions on jailing people because 16K were murdered, but we can't afford to do anything to help the 32K who kill themselves. Again, the diseased, American-hating "analysis" of the marginalized minority...— E.Plebnista
Sadly the help available in the mental health system tends to get abused by scam artist. Psych wards fill their beds with addicts and place them there as a dual diagnosis - they use drugs because there depressed, etc. Someone who has a true mental disability can rarely get help because the last thing someone suffering from depression is about to do - if they do decide to seek help - is to fill out endless government/insurance paperwork. Unless they have someone who cares who can take the burden of dealing with the system it is very difficult (props to TPS, I imagine this is a large part of what you need to deal with for your family member). Reading the little we have on Chapgar I doubt many but the closest people in his life could recognize that a sucessful person like this was depressed. Advice to anybody that needs/wants help for a family member or friend - don't hesitate to express your full fears for the person and learn the phrase suicidal/homicidal tendencies - even if you might worry you are stretching the truth.— bird11- One shot at the left - you can thank the ACLU for most of the difficulty in getting help for adults with mental problems.— bird11
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