Donovan Joshua Leigh Metayer, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland college capturing, has died by suicide. He was 26, based on his household.
Metayer was a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Fla., when gunman Nikolas Cruz opened fireplace, killing 17 college students and employees members.
He took his life following a seven-year battle with schizophrenia that started nearly instantly after the mass capturing, his sister, Nancy Metayer Bowen, introduced in a Fb submit on Saturday.
“The lack of our household’s youngest baby is a sorrow past phrases—one that may echo by our lives, endlessly. But even in our grief, we’re selecting to talk Donovan’s reality, in order that different households shouldn’t have to endure in silence the way in which now we have,” Metayer’s household wrote in a GoFundMe assertion.
Metayer, identified affectionately as “Donny,” was “good and curious” and “excelled academically, with an mind matched solely by a magnetic humor and heat that might gentle up any room, effortlessly,” the assertion mentioned.
“However, beneath that gentle, Donny carried unimaginable sorrow,” his household wrote.
“A graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Florida, his senior 12 months was marked by the Parkland capturing, some of the devastating acts of gun violence in our nation’s historical past,” they added.
“The trauma of that day and the lack of classmates lingered lengthy after commencement and profoundly altered the course of his life.”
Within the months following the capturing, Metayer started to withdraw from the general public and battle along with his psychological well being, based on his family members.
“Although he had dreamt of faculty and a future in pc science, his worsening psychological well being made these goals tough to achieve,” his household mentioned.
“Through the years that adopted, he can be hospitalized a number of occasions for suicidal ideation. Like so many younger folks, he struggled to just accept a psychological well being prognosis,” the assertion continued.
“Discovering care by restricted sources, systemic limitations, and the realities of navigating psychological well being crises as a younger Black synthetic his path all of the extra steep.”
After a psychological well being episode in 2021, Metayer was given remedy below Florida’s Baker Act, that means he was positioned below an involuntary maintain to obtain an emergency psychological well being evaluation and remedy.
The Baker Act additionally quickly barred him from buying a firearm by a Danger Safety Order.
Shortly after, Metayer started working with the Henderson Clinic and a non-public psychiatrist, which “turned a lifeline.”
“With their help, Donny started to heal, incomes an IT certificates and becoming a member of the staff at Workplace Depot in Coral Springs, the place he was shortly promoted,” his household wrote.
“After years of challenges, he was starting to carve out a way of independence and a future he might consider in. His progress was a supply of immense delight for our household.”
Earlier this month, after studying that his Danger Safety Order had lapsed, Metayer bought a handgun at an area gun store.
“Per week later, he would use that very same handgun to take his personal life in our household house,” based on the fundraiser.
The GoFundMe, which can help Metayer’s household with funeral providers and endow a fund on the Henderson Clinic, has raised over $22,000 of its $70,000 objective.
“Donny’s passing is a heartbreaking reminder of the psychological well being disaster plaguing our youth and the lasting trauma of gun violence on our neighborhood,” his household mentioned.
If you’re scuffling with suicidal ideas or are experiencing a psychological well being disaster and reside in New York Metropolis, you’ll be able to name 1-888-NYC-WELL at no cost and confidential disaster counseling. In case you reside outdoors the 5 boroughs, you’ll be able to dial the 24/7 Nationwide Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
