A new C-D-C report finds Louisiana’s suicide rate is up 29-percent since 1999. The national average is 25-percent during that time period. Louisiana Health Department Suicide Prevention Coordinator Danita Leblanc says the state needs to beef up its suicide detection efforts, because some troubled individuals are turing to the wrong health professionals…
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The C-D-C report also found that 54-percent of suicide victims had no no previous mental health issues.

A 17-year-old from Many has been charged with careless operation in a fatal crash that killed a pastor from Sabine Parish. State Police Trooper Scott Moreau says 46-year-old Matthew Haggard was jogging on Highway 6 Thursday morning when the teen driver lost control and struck Haggard…
cut 4 (07) “…the scene”
Haggard leaves behind a wife and two sons.

The Louisiana health department announces plans to keep more people with serious mental illnesses out of state nursing homes. Executive counsel for the Department of Health, Stephen Russo, says the state is enhancing its mental health evaluations of nursing home patients and will find an approprirate home or a community-based setting, if needed. Russo says this will also help with the state’s budget situation…
cut 11 (06) “…nursing home setting”

The state wildlife and fisheries department has lifted a feeding ban in East Carroll, Madison and Tensas Parishes, because sampling tests did not detect chronic wasting disease among white-tailed deer. Extensive testing has been ongoing after a buck tested positive for C-W-D in Mississippi near the Missisippi River.