Shattered man reveals moment police called with news his brother took his own life

A nightmare became reality for a man when he answered the phone to a call from police with harrowing news.

Jason Mumford was Lismore City Council's city centre manager before he took his life in 2018. Picture: Luke Mortimer

Just after 8pm on a night in July five years ago, Adam Mumford received the harrowing call no sibling should ever receive.

It was the police asking him to identify the body of his brother, Jason Mumford, who had taken his life less than an hour after Adam last saw him.

“I left him, gave him a hug and said, ‘I love you brother’, and drove off waving. I had no idea that was the last time I was ever going to see him,” Adam told news.com.au.

“It was a very, very harrowing experience.”

The 50-year-old, father-of-two had been grappling with some troubles at work and the recent separation from his partner, but they weren’t hurdles Adam felt he couldn’t overcome.

“I was worried about him and just wanted to make sure he was OK, and wasn’t going to do anything silly … I wasn’t thinking of that side,” he recalled.

Jason Mumford was Lismore Council’s City Centre manager for several years. Picture: Luke Mortimer

“I went around to his place and saw that he’d had two beers and a glass of wine and thought that seemed fine. And I thought, just so he wouldn’t do anything like try and call his partner, I’ll see if he wants to come and stay at my place, and he said no.”

Not long after they exchanged a hug and an “I love you”, Adam was delivered the heart shattering news.

“I had to go back – I took a friend with me – and identify the body. My phone number was the last in his phone,” he said.

He then had to enter the distressing process of informing the rest of his family, including his mum.

Adam had just a month earlier been working on the launch of a mental health program in Lismore, in the NSW Northern Rivers, which he hoped would go national the following year.

“The program was a total success and we had a lot of support and participants. It was really, really cool,” he said.

“Then a month later, my brother took his life. It was a very, very difficult time.”

In honour of Jason, Adam opened a quirky passion project his brother had mentioned about six months before he died – a food van selling hot chips with a variety of different salts.

Chip Inn with Jase opened nine months after Jason’s death and attracted a wave of support from the community, but the van was ultimately sold and Adam opted to focus on selling the popular salt online – still in memory of his brother under the name, Soult – Salt with Soul.

Adam Mumford opened Chip Inn with Jase in honour of his late brother.

All profits from Soult, which advocates the sharing of food and feelings, go directly to mental health organisations including Headspace and StandBy.

Adam, who has completed multiple mental health accreditations, hoped to launch his “share days” and “table it” concepts for use in homes, schools and workplaces.

He said while he had “tortured” himself thinking how he could have acted differently, he knew there was nothing that could have stopped Jason ending his life that night.

“One thing everyone has to understand is, once it [the thought] is there, it is there. I could have done nothing more in my power at that stage,” he said.

Adam spoke to news.com.au ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10 and as startling data from the Suicide Prevention Australia Community Tracker provided terrible insight into the scale of the country’s mental health battle.

Jason Mumford was 50 when he took his life, leaving behind two children. Picture: Luke Mortimer

New statistics, released this week, show that more than half of Australia’s population is experiencing mental distress directly linked to the cost-of-living crisis that is gripping the nation.

The numbers from the September quarter of this year reveal elevated cost-of-living distress — beyond normal levels — within 56 per cent of Australian families.

Perhaps most alarmingly, the new figures show that suicide deaths have risen an average of 7 per cent in 2022 across NSW and Victoria, representing more than half the national suicide toll between them.

Households with children under 18 were also twice as likely to call a frontline suicide prevention service for help.

Over the past 12 months, those same households reported increased suicidal behaviours and mental illness diagnosis.

Cost-of-living and personal debt was the highest cause of distress for the fifth quarter in a row in the September 2023 quarter. Nationally, 46 per cent of those surveyed blamed those two causes for their decline in mental health.

Suicide Prevention Australia CEO Nieves Murray said the findings served as a “warning sign” for household distress converting into suicide rates.

“We know that suicide is complex and often linked to many risk factors like personal debt, unemployment, family breakdown, social isolation, and mental health,” Ms Murray said.

“Suicide doesn’t discriminate and has an overwhelming ripple effect across families, friends, workplaces and communities.