Warning: This article discusses suicide. Viewer discretion is advised.
LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — A Lafayette man may have hanged himself days ago had it not been for a neighbor who heard screams for help coming from inside a home.
Kirsten Guidry, the victim’s mother, spoke exclusively with us to bring recognition to her neighbor who she says helped return her son back to life.
Guidry said it was her youngest daughter who called her with the news.
“I could tell by the tone in her voice that something traumatic was going on. She was screaming, Mom, and I said what’s the matter? She told me my son had killed himself.”
According to Guidry, her son was home alone when he took a cord, wrapped it around his neck, and hanged himself from the banister.
Earlier in the day, she said, he had reached out to his sister who then drove to the family home and found her brother without a pulse.
“She was trying to loosen the cord from his neck. She didn’t think to loosen it from the banister so every time she was pulling, it was tightening, and he was blue.”
Guidry said she has now learned that her daughter’s screams and cries for help caught the attention of a neighbor, who was doing lawn work, a few houses down.
“As I’m blowing, (the lawn) I hear just frantic screaming, and I thought it was first maybe some kids in the distance, but then it got worse. I dropped my blower, and I took off running toward the screams,” Dustin Green said.
Once at the house, Green says, he jumped into action with help from a nearby nurse who also heard the disturbance.
“She (the nurse) told me to lay him down. I laid him down immediately, put him on the ground, and I started doing chest compressions because she said he had a pulse. Right then and there, I was like, I am not going to give up until I know this man is breathing, and I did what I could. I was sweating over his body from giving so many compressions, but we did the job, and we got him back to life.”
Guidry says she now thinks of Green every day, all day, and is grateful for him being in the right place at the right time.
“For Dustin to take charge and to be brave like he was and take the initiative and go in the house and with the help of the nurse guiding him through the CPR steps to untie my son and to lay him down and to go ahead and perform CPR on him that brought my son back to me, brought my son back to his kids, brought my son back to his brothers and sisters. It is just amazing.”
Data from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the United States.
In 2020, there were an estimated 1.20M suicide attempts. The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged white men who accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths, and men died by suicide 3.88 times more than women.
“I want people to know out there that we have real good Cajuns, real good people. We have lifesavers. We have people that are trying to do good work for the community; I’ve taken it upon myself to adopt him in my heart as another son, and I just want to let everybody know that Dustin Green is a soldier, he is a lifesaver.”
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As for her son, who is in his 30’s, Guidry tells us that he was transported to a behavioral center for help and is doing well and hopes his story can help someone else.
“I want to put it out there that everybody reaches a dead end. Most people even think about doing it, but when you cross that line, that’s something that you just can’t take back. You need to call somebody. Sometimes the hardest person in your family is the one that really loves you the most. The ones sometimes you’re running from, that’s the ones that you need to run to. So please make a call to your community, your pastor, anybody, a close family member or close friend; just call somebody before you do that because it is devastating and thanks to Dustin, we don’t have to bury our family member.”
If you are in need of if you know someone who needs help, call the suicide hotline from any cell phone at 988 or dial 911.