Chase Friedman struggled with depression and suicide for two years before we lost him on November 30th, 2021, two months before his 15th birthday.
During our battle to save his life, Chase attempted to take his life several times. Each time, we were instructed to take him to the ER. On the first occasion, he was taken to the ER in handcuffs in the back of a police car. Emergency Rooms are great for physical emergencies. They are not designed or equipped for a mental health crisis.
Taking a child to the ER during a mental health crisis is doing harm, it is trauma on top of a traumatic situation, and the Chase Life’s mission is to fix this problem.
What is Chase Life doing?
So far, Chase Life has made the following progress in our mission:
We have been working with the Center for Suicide Prevention at Johns Hopkins University to formulate a plan for researching , testing and implementing a new path of care for acutely suicidal teens that eliminate or dramatically shortens stays in the ER.
We have been working with Rady’s Children’s hospital in San Diego to build a new Mental Health Emergency Room (MHER) facility that will increase the capacity to treat emergencies by 20 times the current level.
One of the biggest challenges will be making changes to the 911 protocols and route Mental Health Emergencies directly to facilities that can provide immediate care.