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Lawmaker Calls For Investigation After Student Dies Following Crisis Center Visit

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) - A state lawmaker is calling for an investigation into Colorado crisis centers after the death of a Colorado State University student who sought help. Helen Abbey would have graduated this month.

Instead, her sister, April, accepted her degree, four weeks after the 22 year old took her life.

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(credit: CBS)

"The fight she'd been fighting for so long just became unbearable," April said.

Helen Abbey fought depression. Her story is one of a system that failed her and a stigma that followed her, even unto death.

"For example they wouldn't give us the time of death," her sister Kira Covill said. "Because it doesn't matter we were told."

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(credit: CBS)

But everything about Helen's death matters to her sisters. To see her, they say, is to see depression for what it is.

"It truly is a chronic illness, and it takes all kinds of victims. It doesn't matter if you're smart, beautiful, funny," said Kira.

The sisters say Helen had been seeing therapists on campus until she was hospitalized for suicidal ideations and took a leave of absence from school. She was given the names of other therapists, but none of them were taking new patients.

She ended up at crisis center in Fort Collins, where her sisters say she was told to come back in six weeks.

"Helen needed help then, not six weeks later," said April. "She had this gap in care when she was clearly suicidal and clearly depressed. There was this gap and her treatment should have just continued. It shouldn't have stopped."

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(credit: Abbey family)

The crisis center tells CBS4 there's no wait time for people in crisis. But, Rep. Jonathan Singer is demanding a state investigation.

"I'm hearing from more and more constituents that they are getting turned away from these crisis centers or that signs are up saying they're not even open. Our state dollars went to this program to ensure that everybody struggling with a mental health issue could walk in and get help when they need it. Now, we need to take strong steps - up to and including a potential audit - if we need real answers about where these dollars are going and to make sure every person struggling with mental health can get help when these crisis moments happen," he said.

The Colorado Department of Human Services says the state has put nearly $180 million toward walk-in centers, mobile units and crisis response lines over the last six years. It's looking into what happened to Helen.

"We want lives to be saved because of her," says Kira. "She was just a light. She walked into a room and it really brightened because of her. She was never afraid to be herself and help others embrace who they were."

Helen was studying to be a social worker. Her sisters say all she wanted is to help others, and she is.

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(credit: CBS)

"She just couldn't stand seeing these injustices and doing nothing. She couldn't watch it. She had to be an active participant in helping things get better. And if she were here, she'd be screaming on the mountain about all these things."

In addition to more treatment, Helen's sisters want a law to prevent people recently hospitalized for suicide from buying a gun, which is what she did.

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