LEXINGTON - State officials have created a prevention group in response to alarming suicide numbers among Kentuckians.

        Preliminary data from the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Kentucky indicates that suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Kentuckians between the ages of 15 and 34. The data is from 1996-99.

        The state's annual suicide rate of 12.8 deaths per 100,000 during that time exceeds the national average of 11.45 deaths per 100,000.

        Last March, the state's Department of Mental Health formed the Kentucky Suicide Prevention Planning Group.

        It includes representatives from UK, Western Kentucky University, families of people who have committed suicide, the office of aging and hospice, public school officials and others. About 30 people have attended the group's six meetings.

        Jenny Aker is one of them.

        Her 23-year-old son, Matthew, committed suicide. He is remembered on a quilt on which 19 suicide victims are each represented by an 11 1/2-inch square.

        The quilt will be displayed at a suicide-prevention conference in Lexington on Oct. 25 and then in Washington, D.C., for a suicide survivor conference at a later date.

        Zonnie Gatlin of Lexington, who is helping make the quilt, had a son who shot himself a little more than a year ago.

        She said she hopes the quilt will help illustrate the effects of suicides on families.

        “Suicide is a whole different kind of death,” Ms. Aker said. “Nobody knows how to talk to you or what to say to you.

        “You're actually in physical pain,” she said. “It hurts so bad.”

        Ms. Gatlin said she always believed suicide was something that happened in other families.

        “I always thought there must be something else wrong with the family,” she said.

        Western Kentucky recently became the second Kentucky college to get involved with the prevention group.

        Earlier this year, Nathan Eisert, a member of the Western Kentucky basketball team, shot himself shortly after his dismissal.

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