Fourth Nantucket teen dies Community mobilizes
BY PETER A. SUTTERS JR. INDEPENDENT WRITER

The news of a fourth tragic death of a Nantucket teenager in 18 months shook the island this weekend.

Family members of Benjamin Rives, 18, of York Street found his body in the State Forest off Rugged Road around 5:15 a.m. Saturday.

Rives, a 2008 graduate of Nantucket High School with plans to attend Pratt Institute in the fall, had been missing from his family home since 4 p.m. Thursday, August 7.

Rives was arrested for assault and battery in the early morning hours Thursday, according to the Nantucket Police Department, but a copy of the report was not released by the department because the case is currently under investigation.

The cause of death appeared to be a suicide, according to the Nantucket Police Department.

Rives is the third island teenager to die by suicide in recent history. The cause of death of the fourth teenager remains under investigation by the state medical examiner.

Following the news of the discovery of Rives, the Post Traumatic Stress Management Team met at 10: 30 a.m. Saturday at the High School to discuss its strategy for helping the school community cope with the news from the latest tragedy.

In attendance were Superintendent of Schools Robert Pellicone, Director of Student Services George Kelly, Director of Nantucket Behavioral Health Services Peter Swenson, Board of Selectmen chair Michael Kopko, School Resource Officer Carnavale and Detective Steve Tornovish.

"We met as a group and talked about how to move forward," said Pellicone. "We provided guidance to youngsters who knew the boy (and) who had gathered at the family home."

Pellicone said parents of teens not closely associated with Rives, might not want to dwell on the death.

"Sometimes less is more," said Pellicone.

The Post Traumatic Stress Management Team was formed in January in an effort to offer support to youths atrisk.

"We have a plan in mind and we are moving forward with it," said Pellicone.

Pellicone said that in addition to offering counselors, the school would be offering training to staff members who wished to learn more about suicide prevention. Two training sessions will be offered for faculty - one at the end of August and another in September.

The untimely death of Rives comes on the heels of the 7th annual Massachusetts Suicide Prevention Conference in May, where Peter Evers from the state Department of Mental gave a talk entitled "Nantucket Teen Suicides: Cluster and Contagion?"

The presentation in May focused on five sudden deaths of young Nantucket people, comparing and contrasting the situation to other "suicide clusters" in the United States.

According to Evers, the spate of Nantucket teen suicides can be traced to the first death in July 2005, when a 20-year old male killed himself on island.

Since that first incident in July 2005, five young Nantucket people have died by suicide, with a sixth death still under investigation.

The deaths include the death of the 20-year old male in July 2005; a 15-year old Nantucket High School male who died in February 2007; a 20-year old male, who had grown up on Nantucket and who died in Maine in September 2007; a 17-year old Nantucket High School female, who committed suicide in October 2007; a 16-year old Nantucket High School male, who died at home in January 2008 and Rives this past week.

Pellicone did not believe the current situation on Nantucket could be labeled a contagion.

"I don't want to call it a contagion," said Pellicone. "I don't even want to say that word."

"There is no such thing as a suicide town," said Evers in a phone interview. "You can always look back and find what they call an index event, but the thing about possible contagions, you don't know when they are going to end."

Evers, who said he was not familiar with the circumstances of the latest death, said the tragedy is being dealt with in the best possible way by the community.

"The response of the Post Traumatic Stress Management Team has been incredibly effective," said Evers. "Having the local community involved in these things is the best way to deal with them."

Not everyone agrees the response from the community, and specifically the school, has been as strong as it should be.

"These things are like tornados," said school board member Dr. Tim Lepore. "They are impossible to predict, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't build a storm shelter."

Lepore was critical of the school district for not having done more earlier.

"It's been a year and a half and we're waiting until the new school year starts for some of these programs to open up?" asked Lepore, who said the programs should have been put into place after the first student decided to take his own life.

"We need to get the coaches involved. We need more peer support programs," said Lepore. "I don't know if any of these deaths would have been preventable, but we need to be reaching out to the kids more and sooner. It is a horrible tragedy to see another young life go, but I think this is more of a school problem than a community problem. I would like to see what investments are being made to build the storm shelter." I

Help Numbers

Nantucket Behavioral Health Services
508.228.2689.
A Safe Place
508-228-2111
Nantucket Cottage Hospital Emergency Room or call 911
Samaritans
Teen help line 1-800-252-Teen
24 hour help line 617-247-0220