Editor's note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. Building Hope's local resources can be found at BuildingHopeSummit.org/resources, and the Summit County Sheriff's Office's crisis response team can be contacted by calling 970-668-8600 or 911.
In the first five months of 2026, the Summit County Coroner's Office investigated eight suicides, a number that nearly doubled the five it investigated in 2025.
Coroner Amber Flenniken said the increase does not indicate a trend, however. Flenniken said five months is not enough time to constitute a trend. She pointed out that in 2014 and 2015, Summit County saw 10 suicide investigations each year, but the first five months of those years saw one and five investigations, respectively. In 2018, she said, seven of the 12 total happened in the year's first five months.
"It may stop right there," Flenniken said about the 2026 suicide totals. "We would hope so, right? We hope this is the end."
The community has recognized longer term trends in suicide rates in the past, like when it saw nearly 30 suicide investigations from 2016-2018. Breckenridge Realtor and philanthropist Patti Casey was among those who died by suicide in 2016. Her death led her family to collaborate with 25 community organizations and start a fund through the Summit Foundation in her honor.
The Patti Casey Memorial Fund provided the initial financing for Building Hope, a nonprofit that has provided and promoted mental health resources for nearly a decade. Kellyn Ender, the organization's executive director, said resources in Summit are "miles beyond" what existed in Building Hope's early years. She has discussed this year's suicide rate while presenting to several town councils about the organization's latest work.
"I think it's time we revisit," Ender said. "What are we doing? What are we missing? This community problem has resurfaced."
Middle-aged men identified as a core focus group
Flenniken said death investigators have seen some common characteristics change over time, sometimes year-to-year, while others have persisted. The most significant long-standing comonalities among suicide cases, Flenniken said, include being middle-aged, being male, being white, and having a history of substance or alcohol abuse.
While investigators may never truly know what factored into a person's decision, deputy coroner Britt Lea said piecing together common characteristics among those individuals can help the community prevent future suicides.
Over the last 10 years, Lea said, people who died by suicide in Summit County have "overwhelmingly" been men. From 2020-2025, over 80% of suicides in Summit involved men, Flenniken said.
The average age of those who died by suicide in Summit County over the last 10 years is 43, according to Flenniken. Ender said that men, specifically young to middle-aged men, are often less likely to seek help with mental health issues, instead keeping their problems to themselves.
"I think that maybe this is the vulnerable population that we're missing," Ender said. "Yes, these resources exist, but if that group of people isn't going to reach out and ask for help, how do we come to them?"
Building Hope looks to reach that demographic with events aimed at men, like Dude Talk Dinners and Guys Night Out. Ender said those events started this year, spurred on by the fact that all five suicides in Summit County in 2025 involved men.
"Going into 2026, we were like, "We really want to focus on men in our community and making sure that they're supported," Ender said.
The dinners aim to build and strengthen social networks, Ender said, with a free meal in a "relaxed, nonjudgemental, drug- and alcohol-free environment." They happen monthly at the Summit County Community and Senior Center near Frisco. Building Hope hosted a Guys Night Out event at the community center June 23, which included talks, food, giveaways and activities like cornhole and a putting green.
Grief detected as a possible contributor to incidents of suicide
Flenniken said the eight people who died by suicide this year shared a notable commonality of experiencing some kind of loss within the six months prior to their death, a trend that has been consistent for many years.
That loss, she said, could be the loss of a loved one, but it could also be the loss of a relationship, an animal, the person's autonomy, their job, or something else they valued.
For years, the coroner's office has investigated suicides, identified commonalities and searched for ways to bolster outreach and resources, Flenniken said. That work is not new, and she said her office plans to keep working to prevent suicides.
"I've heard people say, 'Well, maybe we took our foot off the gas,'" Flenniken said. "Absolutely not. The coroner's office (has) had our pedal all the way down."
Though the Summit County Coroner's Office only has four employees, it launched a grief support group in 2025 called Facing the Mourning. Sessions include eight to 10 participants who meet four to five times and do different activities aimed to help them process their grief.
The office had goals to expand the program, Lea told the Summit Daily in August 2025. In June, she said the coroner's office was working to get an "extension" of the program, called Facing Forward, off the ground in response to participant feedback. She said the office has hosted one event so far and is planning more.
The coroner's office has also increased its education efforts in the past year based on recent statistics. Two people who died by suicide this year received terminal diagnoses within six months of their deaths, Flenniken said, but did not receive information about possible end of life care options.
"Do I know that that's why they solely suicided? No, absolutely not," Flenniken said. "But I can look at it as ... a commonality."
Flenniken said people with terminal illnesses in Summit County are not always told about medical aid in dying, also known as physician-assisted suicide, which allows individuals under specified conditions to end their own lives.
By Colorado law, patients must have a prognosis of six months or less to live in order to request and self-administer medication to voluntarily end their own life. The 2016 passage of Proposition 106 established the legality of the practice in state statute.
Flenniken said people who receive terminal diagnoses may experience a loss of autonomy and believe they have no options. But several exist in Colorado, Flenniken said, including medical aid in dying, palliative care and hospice care.
"You can still live a life and have a choice to do it the way you want to do it," Flenniken said. "(You can) say goodbye to all of your friends, your family, and say, "Okay, I'm making this beautiful plan for what my last days are going to be like.""
After the coroner's office identified a lack of knowledge of end-of-life options as a commonality among people who have died by suicide in recent years, Flenniken and Lea attended a conference organized by nonprofit End of Life Options Colorado and started to give presentations to groups in Summit County about end-of-life options.
"It's hard for me to hear, when I know that someone suicides, that they weren't given all of those options when that diagnosis was given," Flenniken said.
Groups focus on helping those in crisis
Ender said that, when a person tries to help someone struggling, they can feel frustrated knowing there is only so much they can do.
"You can do everything possible and set this person up for help or success, but ultimately, the person has to be in the place where they're ready or they want help," Ender said.
For those willing or wanting to receive help, Summit County has dozens of resources available. Building Hope provides mental health scholarships, mental health navigation services, therapist references, support groups, community connection events and references for other organizations' services, including suicide prevention, crisis resources, food programs, financial planning and more. The nonprofit also has information on its website about how to best ask for help or request help for someone else.
The Summit County Sheriff's Office's Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team, or SMART program, helps those in crisis by responding to mental health-related calls. Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said the Summit County community, through mental health stakeholder groups, helped build the co-response program.
"We built a team from the community up, as opposed from the sheriff down, which is really meaningful," FitzSimons said, adding that the program is "nuanced and specific to our community."
SMART teams include a deputy and a clinician who respond to people experiencing mental health crises. Ali Weinig, a clinician with the program, said a majority of calls involve suicidal ideation, but the teams approach each call with an open mind, treating all calls alike, regardless of the initial report.
Weinig said law enforcement officers often arrive at a scene to find circumstances different from what the initial call reported, making it important for SMART teams to remain open-minded. She said SMART teams allow the person in crisis to explain the situation from their point of view.
The SMART program aims to help people out of crisis, or stabilize them, in their home. Before the SMART program launched in 2020, FitzSimons said, law enforcement in Summit County would take people experiencing mental health crises to the emergency room, which proved overwhelming for emergency room staff. He said people were often then sent to mental health facilities outside the county and had a hard time returning home once released.
"You're in a worse crisis than when you left," FitzSimons said. "Now it's, you've lost your job, you've lost your animal, you've lost your car, you've lost everything, right? And now it would just start over again."
Jared Dennis, a Sheriff's Office sergeant with the SMART program, said the teams work with people past their initial stabilization, creating safety plans, remaining in contact and referring them to other resources for long-term success.
"They're not going on a call and just putting a Band-Aid on it and leaving," Dennis said. "We're trying to figure out what in the long term can have these people sustain themselves in our community."
The SMART program also offers case management services, which Dennis said help people navigate the mental healthcare system, communicate with their employers, ensure they find pet care and more. Dennis said those resources help eliminate stressors that might keep people from focusing on their mental health.
Weinig said SMART teams provide free gun locks or lock boxes to better secure clients' weapons or medications kept inside homes, often taping a SMART business card to the box or lock. She said the boxes and locks add time and distance between a person and lethal means during a crisis, while the business cards act as a reminder that help is a call away.
"Who knows how many times someone that they've given a lock box to has gone to open it and thought, 'Ah, I'm not gonna open it, I'm gonna call SMART,'" FitzSimons said.
The help SMART can provide works best when the people receiving it want the help, Dennis said. The teams do not force people to lock up their weapons, he said, instead suggesting lock boxes as a way to keep themselves and others safe.
"There's a lot more success when somebody kind of comes to that conclusion on their own," Dennis said. "Everything that we do is of least restrictive means. We want them to have buy-in to what their future holds."
Programs bring help to those affected by suicide
When someone takes their own life, Ender said, they may be ending their own grief, but they transfer that pain to their loved ones who live on without them.
"That's not to say anything about the person who ended their life," Ender said. "It's just to say that now the people living have to carry that, and oftentimes it's our job, and it's our role as the helping community, to take care of them through that pain."
Besides offering therapy and support group resources, Building Hope partners with the coroner's office and the SMART program to support survivors of suicide loss and attempt survivors. One resource, called "We Care" packages, includes "comfort tools" like blankets, journals, resource books and other information, Ender said.
Ender said anyone who knows another person affected by a suicide can ask Building Hope to check in with that person. The nonprofit then contacts the individual to ask whether they need anything and let them know that "someone's looking out for them," Ender said.
Ender said she has heard many stories of Summit County nonprofits and businesses supporting community members when they ask for help, whether it be someone struggling with mental health or maintenance issues with their car.
"All you have to do is ask and reach out," Ender said. "This community is more than willing to give and support, and I think that's the beautiful thing about Summit."
Editor's note: Due to a difference in statistical methods, actual deaths by suicide could be slightly off from the number of suicide investigations each year, according to Flenniken.
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