Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

A year ago, Jason Fredrich looked at himself in the mirror.

A senior project executive with Martin-Harris Construction, Fredrich had run the gamut of local leadership training. That’s how he met Stacey Hine, who’s been raising awareness and running trainings on suicide prevention for the industry, which employs over 100,000 Nevadans.

Thinking back on her presentations, Fredrich realized that he was the one who needed help.

Fredrich told his fiancée how close he was to suicide, knowing how and when he would do it, and she looped in a friend from work. The pair set Fredrich up with a therapist and “got me out of that hole,” he said. He still sees a therapist today.

“Knowing what I learned through Stacey, and then obviously having the support of family and friends, they got me through it to where now I want to be that light for other people,” Fredrich said. “People need to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

It’s a desperately needed service in an industry with a suicide rate around four times the national average, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. But Hine is seeing progress in a culture that’s historically shut out discussions of mental health.

Hine, director of professional programs and initiatives at Associated Builders and Contractors Nevada, described a perfect storm of factors leading to that high suicide rate.

Many in the industry deal with stress, instability and reduced sleep, but construction’s male-dominated culture has historically made it a field that “discourages open conversations and pushes men to tough it out instead of reaching out,” Hine said.

Construction workers are also much more likely to deal with substance abuse, whether it be alcohol or drug-related. In 2020, 131 people per 100,000 in the industry died of a drug overdose, the highest of any field the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined.

“You have guys and girls out in the field in very dangerous predicaments, getting injured, getting prescribed opiates, which are highly, highly addictive,” Hine said. “Once that dependency starts, and someone’s caught in the cycle of addiction, the shame and the guilt and the fear of asking for help keeps them more withdrawn.

The Associated General Contractors has publicly acknowledged the issue, announcing a quarterly forum for people within the industry to discuss “successful mental health and suicide prevention efforts” in 2022.

The organization in that same announcement said it would make similar resources readily available online for companies and their workers.

“We cannot stand by while a silent epidemic of suicide takes place within our industry,” Stephen Sandherr, then the association’s CEO, wrote in a statement. “The bottom line is safety isn’t just about wearing the right protective equipment.”

And Hine has been able to inject what she’s learned about suicide in construction into her work at ABC Nevada.

Toward the end of each month, she holds a Zoom session for ABC Nevada members to talk about mental health issues, addiction recovery and suicide prevention. In those meetings, which have had up to 20 people, Hine said she wants people to be able to ask questions and have an open dialogue.

When she started talking about suicide in construction a few years ago, Hine said the statistics were a shock to many people. That’s changed, she said, with more people “embracing” being vulnerable. She attributes part of that shift to the pandemic.

“During that time, mental health, it became a little less stigmatized to talk about,” Hine said. “I’m seeing that people are a little more willing to have these uncomfortable conversations. And they see the value of it, because we all had some mental health issues during the pandemic.”

There’s also a generational divide, Hine said. Some of the most experienced leaders in the business often struggle the most at first, she said, but she’s been surprised by people’s ability “to make a complete shift.”

Hine includes a session on mental health and another on addiction within ABC Nevada’s Rising Leaders program. During that, she shares her own experience recovering from opioid and gambling addictions, which she said models vulnerability while giving other people the comfort to speak about their lives.

Fredrich has participated in the program twice, and he said he’s been able to bring some of what he’s learned from Hine’s training back to Martin-Harris.

The company has shut down job sites for a day to discuss mental health, which Martin-Harris’ safety department facilitates, he said. The company has “anywhere from 350 to 500” employees between the office and field at any given time, Fredrich said.

Like Hine, he said he’s seen progress over the past two years. People “that you wouldn’t think were having mental health struggles” have been reaching out to talk about their problems more often, Fredrich said.