Incidence of Suicide Surpasses Number Car Crash Deaths Among Middle School Students in US

A federal report issued on Thursday said that the suicide rate among US middle school students doubled from 2007 to 2014. It is the first time the tally surpassed the incidence of youngsters aged 10 to 14 who died in car accidents.

The consistent seven-year increase in suicide among middle school students, from an annual rate of middle school suicides is 0.9 to 2.1 per 100,000, came as traffic casualties among the same age group decreased to 1.9 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

The motor vehicle mortality rate reported for 2014 indicated a 60 percent drop from 1999. 2014 was the latest year for which such data was available, while 1999 was when the government started monitoring such figures.

In cumulative numbers, 425 young individuals 10 to 14 years of age took their own lives in 2014. On the other hand, 384 individuals from the same age group died in car accidents that same year, according to the CDC.

Those figures contrasted sharply with numbers from 1999. The rate of middle school students killed in car crashes that year was four times higher than the rate among those who died from suicide.

Commenting on the findings, Mark Kaplan, a professor of social welfare at the University of California reiterated that any increase in youth suicides should be of concern.

“In time we might uncover some reasons, but a cautionary note is not to rush to any conclusions from this,” Kaplan said.

The primary causes of suicide are highly complex. This makes it tough to explain the trends documented by the CDC, he added.

Accidents in General on the Rise

According to the CDC, the leading general cause of death for Americans aged 10 to 14 remains accidents of all kinds, including car crashes. This accounted for 750 fatalities in that age group in 2014,.

Mortality rates from traffic collisions among all age groups have declined over several decades in the United States. Observers attribute this, in part, to improved safety features in cars, such as airbags.

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Russian Woman Says Pokemon Go Creature Raped Her

It was bound to happen. The near instantaneous worldwide popularity of the location-based augmented reality game Pokemon Go has brought forth an excess of odd, sometimes shocking tales. These stories range from people being mugged, robbed, getting hit by vehicles, to having to be fished out of holes or lakes. All these disasters endured for the sake of finding various Pokemon.

Now this recent incident that occurred in Russia takes the cake in terms of “weirdness”. A Moscow police report mentions a woman claiming that a creature from the digital reality game raped her.

The report states that the unidentified 23-year-old woke up due to the weight of a large Pokemon straddling her. When she became fully conscious, she realized that the “Charizard” was actually raping her. She quickly hopped off her bed and the virtual character vanished.

Puzzled, the woman immediately got hold of her smartphone to check on the game app. She could still sense the presence of the creature. According to her, her apartment was some sort of portal where the virtual monsters congregate, which causes her dog to bark incessantly.

She then woke up her husband who was asleep beside her the whole time. She relates her story and naturally he does not believe her and asked her to go back to bed. Furthermore, he tells her to see a psychiatrist first thing in the morning.

The next day, instead of a psychiatrist she went straight to the nearest psychic. Again, naturally, the clairvoyant refused to believe her story and says she needed a psychiatrist. So off she goes to book an appointment with a shrink.

She also dropped by a police station to file a police report. However, none of the officers who heard her story believed it either.

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