They carry the names of some of those she has loved and lost. Two names appear repeatedly \u2013 Devin Scott and Dylan Redwine, only two of the friends the 19-year-old has lost to suicide, shootings, illness or accident in the past six years.<\/p>\n
Adolescence for Baird has proved not to be the carefree years she anticipated but a minefield of funerals, memorials and candlelight vigils.<\/p>\n
There have been 116 children 17 or younger whose unexpected deaths have been investigated by the El Paso County Coroner\u2019s Office since 2015. Fifteen were homicides, 39 died in various accidents (which could include anything from accidental asphyxia to car crashes), and 44 died by suicide. The remaining 18 deaths were ruled natural, undetermined or have causes still pending.<\/p>\n
More than half of those youths were between the ages of 13 and 17.<\/p>\n
The death of Marshall Mitschelen in May marked the 10th teenage friend Baird has lost since moving to Colorado Springs in the summer of 2007. She co-organized a balloon release in Mitschelen\u2019s honor, but as with others before him, when she released the strings she was unable to relinquish the grief.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to make it as a teen right now,\u201d she said the week after Mitschelen\u2019s death, referring simultaneously to some of the motivations behind her friends\u2019 deaths \u2013 bullying, violence, the struggle to belong \u2013 and also the sorrow of those forced to go on living without them.<\/p>\n
She can\u2019t decide whether the trauma has left her weak or made her stronger.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel numb in a way,\u201d Baird said. \u201cYou don\u2019t really know what to think, you don\u2019t really know what to say to people. You try to get better but something bad again knocks you down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her memorial bands fulfill her promise to \u201cnever forget,\u201d but they\u2019re also shackles tying her to the grief she has yet to work through. She refuses to consider formal counseling \u2013 though she has attended a support group for five years \u2013 because she doesn\u2019t want to talk about her \u201cproblems\u201d and doesn\u2019t trust that it would help.<\/p>\n
That distrust is a growing trend among other young people, too, said Falcon District 49 psychologist and director of Community Care Kim Boyd. Death is becoming so common for some teens they consider it almost clich\u00e9 to cry about, she said.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re desensitized, she said, they don\u2019t want to talk about it, at least not for very long. They don\u2019t want to \u201cwalk through a graveyard\u201d of memorials leading into school. They don\u2019t want to feel, period.<\/p>\n
The number of deaths reviewed by the Colorado Child Fatality Prevention System is highest in El Paso County \u2013 269 from 2009 through 2016. But when factored by population, the county\u2019s rate of death per 100,000 teens for suicide, motor vehicle crashes or other firearms-related deaths is not among the top five in the state.<\/p>\n
Still, the county\u2019s youth suicide rate gained national attention in 2016. It has suffered a rash of youth homicides. And the county has lost numerous school teachers and administrators recently to car, bike and skiing accidents.<\/p>\n
The number of school population-related deaths may not be statistically irregular \u2013 \u201cI haven\u2019t observed a significant increase beyond what our ever-increasing population couldn\u2019t account for,\u201d Coroner\u2019s investigator Leon Kelly said \u2013 but the barrage is taking a toll.<\/p>\n
Rather than acknowledge it, though, kids seem to be trying other tactics: deny, distance and avoid.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeeling is not something anyone wants to do anymore and I think that is bleeding down into our youth,\u201d Boyd said. \u201cTo them, it\u2019s just like, \u2018Well, it\u2019s just another thing that happened.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Baird was 14 when she first experienced loss.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the death of a grandparent or even someone elderly. It was Devin Scott, a 17-year-old DJ at Skate City, the roller rink that had come to be \u201clike another home\u201d for Baird, a refuge from the constant bullying she says she suffered at school.<\/p>\n
The two talked often about how mean kids could be to each other. For Baird, the previous year had been \u201cthe worst year of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hadn\u2019t had much luck making friends at Sabin Middle School. Kids pushed her in the hallway or shoved her against the lockers, she said. They told her on social media to kill herself. \u201cWe already dug a grave for you,\u201d one girl told her, \u201cjust show up and we\u2019ll bury you alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
In gym, a girl yanked down Baird\u2019s pants, including her underwear. She resorted to eating lunch in classrooms with teacher supervision or in the safety of a bathroom stall \u2013 \u201cthe only place I wasn\u2019t getting bullied.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she felt safe at the skating rink among other self-proclaimed misfits. People dressed like her \u2013 edgy. Many had also been bullied, but strutting in to blaring hip-hop during a Friday spin night could make anyone feel cool.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to be the star athlete at Skate City (and it\u2019s relatively cheap entertainment, $5.50 a ticket), which is what facility manager Bill Mulhern thinks attracts \u201coutsiders.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives a place to have identity where they might not otherwise,\u201d Mulhern said.<\/p>\n
It was in that comfort zone where Baird first vocalized a question that had been on her mind for a year: What if she did kill herself? It was directed at Scott, who she says scolded her, urging her to \u201ctry as hard as I could\u201d to survive and be happy.<\/p>\n
She knew little of his unhappiness.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 6, 2012, Scott was reportedly in a scuffle with a person who threatened to fight him after school. A crowd of kids followed him home that day, hoping to watch. They stood outside his house taunting him, banging on the front door, jumping on top of his car and overturning a trash can in his driveway. He called his school counselor for help, then the police nonemergency line. No one came.<\/p>\n
The next day, Scott hanged himself. Baird was crushed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked up to him,\u201d Baird said. \u201cWhen he did it, it made me feel like there\u2019s not a lot of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before she even had time to process the loss, there came another three months later.<\/p>\n
Baird called Dylan Redwine \u201cone of my closest best friends\u201d and sometimes her boyfriend after he moved in across the street in 2012. All the neighborhood kids hung out together, but he and Baird were especially close.<\/p>\n
When Redwine was required by a court order to visit his father near Durango for Thanksgiving that year, the teens promised to message each other through Facebook or texting until he was back.<\/p>\n
Redwine was reported missing two days later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI instantly started crying, bawling, screaming,\u201d Baird said. \u201cWe just kept hoping that we\u2019d be able to find him alive, but I had people telling me he\u2019s dead, just stop looking for him, just stop caring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redwine\u2019s remains were found that June. The death went unsolved until last summer when authorities arrested Dylan\u2019s father, Mark Redwine, on suspicion of murder. Mark Redwine pleaded not guilty to the charge June 29 and is next scheduled for a pretrial hearing in November.<\/p>\n
Again, Baird had little time to process the loss or grieve.<\/p>\n
That December, another Skate City friend, Alyissa Garcia, 12, drowned.<\/p>\n
Six months after that, Doherty High School classmate Jacob Crookston, 15, shot and killed himself in the bathroom at the start of the school day. She remembers his easy \u201cHi\u201d in the hallway or occasional greeting hugs, friendly gestures that meant a lot.<\/p>\n
Five friends\u2019 deaths in three years would be a lot for any 15-year-old to process, so Baird didn\u2019t. She refused to see a counselor at school or elsewhere, calling them \u201cfake,\u201d and feared \u201cburdening\u201d anyone else she might talk to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like to talk about my problems because it doesn\u2019t make me feel good about myself,\u201d Baird said. \u201cSometimes, yes, I wish I had a place to go to talk. I know people say one-on-one (counseling) is better, but I feel like it wouldn\u2019t help too much. They would tell me what I already know.\u201d<\/p>\n
At her parents\u2019 urging, Baird did begin attending a support group organized in honor of Devin Scott by Devin\u2019s mother, Angel Bradley, and she continues to attend it five years later. Groups of five to 10, mainly girls now, gather each Tuesday to talk about their lives, vent and receive advice. \u201cIt helps a lot,\u201d Baird said.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t enough at the time. Baird was depressed but didn\u2019t know how to say it. She thought about telling her parents, but they were burdened by working multiple jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew there wasn\u2019t really anything I could tell them that would be OK,\u201d Baird said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to talk to them about suicide and when my friends died I didn\u2019t know how to talk to them about stuff, and they didn\u2019t know what to say to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started sneaking steak knives from the kitchen and cutting into her wrists. She described it as her attempt to drain the pain.<\/p>\n
The self-mutilation would continue periodically over the next three years until one cut nearly killed her. Though Baird says she \u201cwasn\u2019t really trying\u201d to end her life, one night in her junior year she sliced too deep, severing part of a blood vessel.<\/p>\n
It required six staples to hold the more than inch-long gash together, the scar from which remains bright on her pale skin.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything in my life that was happening, it just didn\u2019t feel like I wanted to be here anymore,\u201d Baird said. \u201c(The deaths are) still really hard to deal with, especially when it just keeps happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her senior year, Baird transferred to the smaller campus of Spring Studio for Academic Excellence, but that did little to insulate her from further loss.<\/p>\n
In October 2017, two of her former Doherty High School friends, Alex Ainsworth, 18, and Nate Czajkowski, 16, were shot and killed in separate incidents just three days apart.<\/p>\n
Czajkowski was an aspiring rap artist who went by the stage name \u201cNate Winters\u201d and who Baird sometimes talked to at parties, including the night he died. But Ainsworth had been her go-to friend for group projects the previous two years. They dissected a shark together and were frequently scolded for talking during class.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, when Ainsworth found her eating lunch alone at her locker he would stop to talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex was always a person to ask if I was doing good,\u201d Baird said.<\/p>\n
Even graduation hasn\u2019t separated Baird from loss. Harleigh Quinn Simpson, 16, a Skate City friend and former Doherty classmate who commiserated with Baird about bullying, died by suicide in February. A second Skate City friend, Tyrese Gayle, 17, also reportedly shot himself in March. An official cause of death has not been determined, but police said they are investigating the shooting as self-inflicted.<\/p>\n
The 10th death in Baird\u2019s short 19 years was Mitschelen, 17, who friends say was shot accidentally by another teen showing off a gun. Police are investigating the death as a homicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these deaths, it adds up,\u201d Baird said.<\/p>\n
And those are just the teens with whom Baird had personal relationships. With 116 other unexpected or suspicious youth deaths across the county during the past three years, the potential that others may be similarly suffering is large.<\/p>\n
Boyd describes the far-reaching ripple effect a single death can cause, spreading out in waves from the deceased to their family, friends, classmates, teachers, school, previous schools, community, friends from extracurricular activities, sometimes military connections, their siblings\u2019 friends, schools and teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just grows and grows,\u201d Boyd said. \u201cSometimes people will say they don\u2019t understand why people are so impacted by the loss of someone they didn\u2019t even know. But that\u2019s another loss and it has that kindling effect. Entire communities are impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n
She saw the impact last year after Falcon District 49 suffered multiple losses in rapid-fire succession. Kids \u201cstarted to have feelings of being cursed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are we going to lose next?\u201d they asked her.<\/p>\n
But like Baird, those kids also don\u2019t seem to be willing to open up about the trauma.<\/p>\n
Area schools have tried to be proactive by enhancing counseling opportunities in the wake of crises. Suicide-prevention education has been boosted, which has worked to an extent. During the first four months of last year, the Coroner\u2019s Office reported 10 youth suicides; this year, they\u2019ve had two.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that is a testament of schools\u2019 and parents\u2019 commitment to the issue,\u201d Coroner\u2019s Investigator Kelly said.<\/p>\n
In partnership with the Youth Suicide Prevention Workgroup and El Paso County Public Health, county agencies have combined forces to develop action plans, distribute suicide-screening tools and eliminate the stigma often attached to seeking help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve really turned the tide here with our joint effort,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s hard to get at all root causes that contribute to an unhealthy mental state.<\/p>\n
A 2017 suicide prevention discussion, \u201cTeen Think Tank,\u201d involved 150 area youths. The participants described struggling with family problems, depression or a combination of issues. Sixty-five of them admitted to having suicidal thoughts, but less than half of those surveyed said they found the school\u2019s resources for those issues helpful.<\/p>\n
Most said they\u2019d never use the Safe2Tell anonymous hotline, and nearly all ranked the school counselor as the last \u201ctrusted adult\u201d they\u2019d open up to, behind the school resource officer, a teacher or a coach.<\/p>\n
Why? Teens said they feared potential repercussions, they lacked trust in strangers or believed that the resource wouldn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat makes me sad,\u201d Colorado Association of School Counselors Executive Director Matthew McClain said, \u201cbecause that\u2019s what we\u2019re there for, to support the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
In McClain\u2019s small Morgan County school district of about 3,000 students, kids seem to be more open to talking, partly because it\u2019s a \u201cclose-knit community\u201d and partly because they\u2019ve had counselors working with youths since elementary school \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s not foreign to them.\u201d The district also doesn\u2019t typically have more than one death a year, the latest being a car crash that killed a well-liked student, he said.<\/p>\n
But in larger schools, like in El Paso County, where students have been bombarded with deaths, it makes sense that there would be some resistance, McClain said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey might be at capacity,\u201d McClain said. \u201cThey may say enough is enough, and I don\u2019t want to do this anymore. I don\u2019t want to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the wall Boyd keeps hitting.<\/p>\n
Across five crisis events this year, District 49 counselors interacted with 350 students, a number Boyd considers low. Some kids say they don\u2019t want to talk about death, she said, others argue there is \u201cnothing they can do about it\u201d or that \u201cit doesn\u2019t affect them\u201d because they didn\u2019t know the deceased.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as a counselor walks up, they clam up,\u201d Boyd said of students. \u201cWe want to bring all this mental health into schools, but the kids are not wanting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But counselors say they\u2019re not giving up.<\/p>\n
Boyd is seeking to train all school staff to recognize the signs of crisis so that youths can be helped by whomever they chose to confide in, and she wants to host additional student discussions.<\/p>\n
McClain says more peer-to-peer support efforts have been effective in his district.<\/p>\n
Kids sign banners of support for family or other schools dealing with loss, they send cookies or write notes of encouragement.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh school students really rely on each other for processing, versus kids that are younger and want that adult intervention,\u201d McClain said.<\/p>\n
One student had a suggestion during the Teen Think Tank discussion: \u201cJust listen, don\u2019t always try to find a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Healing is a daily process for Baird. It\u2019s slow, with many setbacks, but she\u2019s making progress.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s been with her boyfriend for four years. She has a steady job. She has stopped cutting herself and attends her support group every week. She got a tattoo \u2013 a serene mountain scene stretching halfway down her left arm, which she says represents peacefulness.<\/p>\n
She has no plans to stop wearing the memorial bands.<\/p>\n
They are more than reminders of tragedy \u2013 they represent happy memories with friends who \u201cmade me have a good life.\u201d They are also daily reminders of the battle she and others are still fighting to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love when people like to read them,\u201d Baird said.<\/p>\n
Without the bands, she said, people wouldn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
carry the names of some of those she has loved and lost. Two names appear repeatedly \u2013 Devin Scott and Dylan Redwine, only two of the friends the 19-year-old has lost to suicide, shootings, illness or accident in the past six years. Adolescence for Baird has proved not to be the carefree years she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[519],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-dylan-redwine"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98727"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}