Teen suicide victim Daniel Turton’s family still searching for answers
The family of teen suicide victim Daniel Turton has opened up about the pain of losing him and have been left wondering what more they could have done. They want more open discussion about suicide, saying no one had ever asked them why their boy chose to die.
NSW
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Like many teenagers, 16-year-old Daniel Thomas Turton had some heavy secrets and a troubled heart but life was looking up.
He was loving a music production course at TAFE, had told his family he was ready to conquer his drug addiction and even opened up about his struggle with his sexuality.
The north shore teen had also made a fresh start, moving to the northern beaches, where he was living with his father following his parents’ separation. Then the COVID-19 lockdown hit. By July 19 the popular teen had suicided.
Today, Daniel’s distraught family are imploring young men to open their hearts and urging parents to tell their boys it’s OK to cry. They are also encouraging open discussion about suicide, saying no one had ever asked them why their boy had chosen to die.
“He was locked at home in the sense that he did not have access to go to TAFE, didn’t have access to go to work, didn’t have access to see all of his friends and I think it crushed the attempt that he did make to try to seek help, support and motivation,” Dan’s 22-year-old sister Maddy told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I think he was turning around at the beginning of this year and, to have all of that stomped on, I just think it is irreversible.
“He also had this even more masculine vibe so that nobody around him would anticipate he was having gender or sexuality issues.”
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Until last year Dan was attending a large state high school on the north shore, a school with one of the lowest allocation of school counsellors in the state. However, mother Jo Kellman commended counsellors and staff for trying to help Dan.
Dan is one of nine school-age teenagers to have suicided in the area since January.
His older brother Will said Dan was a “really bubbly, extremely sociable and very popular” 14-year-old who started to go downhill after his father Chris Turton and Ms Kellman separated in May 2017.
A cannabis addiction developed and before long he was hooked on antidepressant Xanax, a drug a friend obtained for him on the dark web.
But behind Dan’s bloodshot eyes was another secret. Dan told his brother Will two weeks before his death he was bisexual.
“I asked how long he had felt like that he said: ‘My entire life’,” Will said.
“He also literally said that he was ashamed of it and he felt as if he couldn’t tell his friends.”
It was the moment his family realised the storm inside Dan was fuelled by a fear of coming out.
It also explained why he had, two years before, suddenly become ultra-masculine and what Will described as “a homosexual and a homophobe at the same time”.
“Dan was trying to be overly aggressively homophobic in front of his laddish friends to throw them completely off his trail,” Maddy said.
Dan had tried to kill himself in April 2019, in the family home. He was put on suicide watch at Royal North Shore Hospital.
After Dan’s discharge Ms Kellman endured an “extremely tense week” before they were able to get him in to see a mental health specialist at Hornsby Hospital.
Dan had agreed with his mum and the psychologist to undergo a treatment plan, something Dan retracted after walking out of the session.
“I was a bit shocked so I just sat in the middle of the hospital corridor and said I wasn’t going to take him down to the car unless he agreed to do what he had said,” Ms Kellman, 56, said.
“He was so mortified that I was sitting on the floor that he said yes, OK. But after that he wouldn’t go.”
Dan shut his family out, refusing to talk to them in any meaningful way.
In the week before he died the now 17-year-old also had friendship and romantic issues. Then on July 19 he told his father he was bisexual and willing to go to rehab to treat his drug addiction.
Mr Turton said the revelation was massive.
“I said: ‘I’ll take tomorrow off work and I’ll get a psychologist sorted for you’,” Mr Turton, 55, said.
“Dan then walked to his bedroom door. I held him, kissed him on his forehead, and said: ‘I love you, I always will and whatever you are going through at the moment I’m there for you’. He then went to his bedroom and suicided two hours after that.”
Paramedics were able to revive Dan and he spent a week in Northern Beaches Hospital before his life support was turned off.
In the three months since Dan’s death his family have been assessing what went wrong.
They say ineffective drug education in schools, homophobia, COVID-19 lockdowns and a lack of young males in both teaching and mental healthcare all contributed to the problem.
Mr Turton said nobody asked the family why Dan killed himself.
“When you are touched by suicide, you think: ‘If we had known a few of these indicators in advance it may have made a difference to the outcome’,” Mr Turton said.
“There is a lack of awareness of suicide, prevalence of it, the reasons for it, the taboo around it.
“There should be more clarity and understanding among parents that the threat of suicide is very clear and it appears to be on the rise.”
DEDICATED STAFF BUT TOO MANY PROBLEMS
The mother of suicide victim Dan Turton has commended the work of counsellors and staff at her son’s former school, but feels they are run off their feet.
The state high school on Sydney’s north shore is one of the most under-resourced public high schools in the state when it comes to counsellors.
The school has 1678 students yet has only one full-time equivalent counsellor.
That is more than three times’ worse than the recommended ratio of one counsellor for 500 students — a ratio the state government agreed to in principle in 2018, but has never achieved.
“The school counsellors did a good job following up on Dan and he had plenty of opportunities to talk to a counsellor,” Dan’s mother Jo Kellman said.
“Because there were two of them they worked part-time and they were stretched. It’s a big school.”
There are 99 public high schools in NSW that have more than 1000 students yet only one full-time equivalent counsellor.
This school is the fourth-worst in that category when it comes to school counsellors.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the school had “at least 23 full-time staff supporting student wellbeing and at least 11 programs designed to support student wellbeing and mental health”.
“The support for student wellbeing is a combination of both school and community services,” she said.
A NSW Education spokesman said there were more than 300 school counsellors in the pipeline and “we are increasing the size of the school counselling service by 100 while employing 350 more student support officers”.
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