For some, financial stress can prove too much to bear.
Last week, Knoxville man Michael McReynolds reportedly retrieved a gas can from his garage, doused himself in fuel, then lit himself on fire in his front yard, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. McReynolds allegedly got word earlier in the week that he wouldn't be receiving “important assistance from a private organization,” according to FOX News.
Tragically, suicide following financial stress has become an all-too-common phenomenon. California man Norman Rousseau shot himself in May after battling Wells Fargo for years over a mortgage loan dispute. Similarly, a Connecticut mother and daughter were found dead in a suspected murder-suicide after facing the prospect of eviction, The Hartford Courant reports. A little bit more than a month before, a senior Ohio couple facing foreclosure were found with fatal gunshot wounds after reporting a murder-suicide at their own address.
McReynolds story is also sadly reminiscent of that of Andrew Wordes of Georgia, known by some as the Chicken Man. Facing eviction due to legal and mortgage debts, Wordes blew up his home while still inside.
Financial woes are having a particularly devastating affect on those in some European countries that have seen a spike in suicides since the financial crisis. In Greece for example, the suicide rate among men increased more than 24 percent from 2007 to 2009, with similar trends in the economically struggling countries of Ireland and Italy, The New York Times reports.