Heartbreaking: High School Football Player Dies by Suicide Over COVID Isolation
A 16-year-old high school football player from Brunswick, Maine, died by suicide on Friday after struggling with the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic.
Spencer Smith, a sophomore at Brunswick High School, left a note detailing being “locked in the house” due to COVID restrictions as one of the primary reasons for his actions.
His father, Jay Smith, noted that the entire lockdown experience was extremely rough on his son’s mental health from the get-go.
Today I spoke to the family of Spencer Smith. Smith died by suicide on Friday. His family says he left a note, writing he felt locked in the house and disconnected from his friends due to the pandemic #NEWSCENTERmaine pic.twitter.com/jIiwlF8DUs
— Jackie Mundry (@j_mundry) December 8, 2020
From socially distanced football practices to remote learning at school, Spencer felt increasingly isolated as time went on, according to his father.
“We knew he was upset because he was no longer able to participate in his school activities, football. We never guessed it was this bad,” Jay Smith told NBC News on Tuesday.
“Looking back now we could see little things that we should have caught but we didn’t realize his mental health was deteriorating as bad.”
Jay Smith decided to share his son’s story with the hope of encouraging other teenagers struggling with COVID restrictions to come forward and seek out help.
“There’s help out there,” he said. “This pandemic can’t last forever and if they’re feeling alone and depressed, they need to reach out for help. Things will get better. I ask parents to talk to their children.”
From the outset of COVID lockdowns, various experts suggested such harsh restrictions would have a negative impact on mental health, increasing the number of overall suicides.
Charles N. Steel, an associate professor and the Herman A. and Suzanne S. Dettwiler Chair in Economics at Hillsdale College, told The Western Journal back in May that “Several estimates have suggested that unemployment from the U.S. lock downs could … result in over 70,000 excess deaths from suicide and drug abuse alone.”
A CDC survey conducted from June 24 to June 30 affirmed tragedies like Spencer’s were more common than anyone would like to believe.
One of the survey’s more shocking findings was that 25.5 percent of respondents age 18-24 reported suicidal ideation.
Despite this, many left-wing outlets have published claims that COVID lockdowns haven’t actually caused an uptick in suicides.
An Oct. 21 Op-Ed from The Washington Post claimed “suicide rates during the pandemic” have remained “unchanged.”
While many of the facts shared in the Op-Ed are technically correct, they don’t quite capture the full truth.
On Nov. 12, the British Medical Journal released a study explaining why such stories are incredibly misleading.
“Overall, the literature on the effect of covid-19 on suicide should be interpreted with caution. Most of the available publications are preprints, letters (neither is peer reviewed) or commentaries using news reports of deaths by suicide as the data source,” the study read.
The BMJ does explain that while pandemic suicide rates from the early months of the pandemic looked promisingly low, a short-term decrease was to be expected. Regardless, early data showed “concerning” suicide rates among “under 18s” in the United Kingdom.
“Evidence from previous epidemics suggests a short term decrease in suicide can occur initially –possibly linked to a ‘honeymoon period’ or ‘pulling together’ phenomenon,” the study said.
“Trends in certain groups may be hidden when looking at overall rates, and the National Child Mortality Database has identified a concerning signal that deaths by suicide among under 18s may have increased during the first phase of lockdown in the UK.”
Overall, the study concluded that while many suicide risk factors were likely being “exacerbated” by the pandemic, “it is still too early to say what the ultimate effect of the pandemic will be on suicide rates.”
With lockdowns in many states continuing to cripple small businesses, it is likely that the economic fallout will be felt for years to come.
The ensuing effect on suicide rates from such long-term consequences will be hard to quantify, but it can be reasonably assumed that those effects won’t be positive.
If American citizens continue to be forced to experience the harsh rules of strict coronavirus lockdowns that many blue states have decided to enforce, mental health across the country will only continue to deteriorate.
If you or someone you know is in crisis or at risk of suicide please call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org for more resources.
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