My year group from high school is bound by a pretty horrid stat – three of the people in the group have taken their own life. 

There were only about 80 people in my year so that’s a ratio of about one in 27 – so far, heaven forbid. 

The first suicide, by a male, happened a couple of weeks before final exams about 15 years ago. The second, again male, was several years later. I wouldn’t say I knew either of them particularly well. 

However, the third to die – just last month – was a girl I was fairly close to during school and for several years after when we both went to Auckland to study together. 

I attended two of the funerals and your thoughts dwell on the same things – what the victims must have been going through to come to such a decision and what could have been done to change it. And how truly bloody awful it must be for loved ones left behind. 

I don’t think all three attending the same school and being in the same year group had anything much to do with their sad deaths – though it is chilling and makes you wonder. Maybe it’s a screaming example of the copycat suicide theory. 

But when it comes to what could have been done to change any of the outcomes, I’m really none the wiser. So I can sympathise with coroner David Crerar’s comments in last week’s Mountain Scene. 

After 33 years as a coroner and having dealt with – by his estimate – “probably thousands” of self-inflicted deaths, Crerar confesses: “I don’t know why people [commit] suicide.” 

Yet he’s the one who decides what can and can’t be reported about such instances – and in most cases, he decides that should be nothing at all. 

The reporting regime in New Zealand for suicide is highly restrictive. In Queenstown, under Crerar’s highly cautious watch, it’s even more so. 

As it stands, the Coroner’s Act prohibits public release of suicide details unless coroners are satisfied the information is unlikely to be detrimental to public safety. 

Crerar goes further. He believes mere publication of the fact of a suicide occurring – even with no identifying details – contributes to its normalisation and no doubt risks prompting further attempts. 

Chief coroner Neil MacLean on the other hand favours “a gentle opening up of the guidelines of suicide reporting”. 

“The toll is not coming down so we can’t expect to lower it by doing the same old thing,” MacLean has said recently. 

Despite their proximity to so many tragic suicides, even these highly-experienced coroners seem as much in the dark about what to do as the rest of us. 

NZ has one of the worst suicide rates in the world – more than 500 people a year between 2000-06. 

Worse than the road toll. 

And while Crerar’s cautious approach prevents us knowing Queenstown suicide stats, Mountain Scene has been told on fairly good authority of 14 rumoured self-inflicted deaths locally in the past four years. 

The fact NZ also has one of the most restrictive reporting regimes on suicide may just be a coincidence – or perhaps there’s a causal link between the two. 

Or maybe there’s something deep within the NZ psyche which is behind the alarming stats. 

For now, in the absence of anything conclusive, all we can do is hope we’re taking all the steps possible as a community to ensure the vulnerable find some light in their world.