Students share stories in record-breaking suicide prevention walk

A week before his first Out of the Darkness Campus Walk, Will Spurlock ‘26 lost his brother to suicide. Three years later, he stood in front of a record-breaking crowd on Cruz Plaza to help raise more than $13,000 for suicide prevention.

About 200 people gathered on Mercer's campus to support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, marking Mercer’s largest Out of the Darkness since its inception in 2020, according to AFSP fundraising manager Sarala Waller. The event also broke its previous fundraising record.

Waller said these events are meant to spark conversation about suicide to prevent future deaths.

She added that families who lost loved ones to suicide “want to remember their loved one for more than just that they died. Bringing to light this issue is healing for a lot of people.”

Spurlock’s brother died in April 2023 just a week before Spurlock walked with his fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, which organized the event. Spurlock said he nearly forgot about the walk until his brother's death.

Without his knowledge, his fraternity brothers raised thousands of dollars that same week and offered to pay for his family’s funeral costs. The group only asked that Spurlock show up for the walk, but never told him about the money they raised until the day of the event.

“That meant so much that a group of 40 guys did that just for me,” he said.

Since then, Spurlock has led the walk. While he has shared his story for three years, other speakers almost did not share theirs.

Waller said suicide is “surprisingly” stigmatized and she said one problem is a misunderstanding of suicide and mental illness.

“There’s a lot of people who shy away from even thinking about it or talking about it. It’s easy to be judgemental about why someone would do that,” Waller said.

Spurlock said one of the motivations for the walk is to break the stigma, so he invited four Mercer students to present speeches about their loved ones who died by suicide.

When Teresita Cabral ‘26 was first offered to speak about her stepfather, Kendrick, she said she thought to herself “hell no.” But after some reflection, Cabral decided to share stories to remember happy moments with the man she called her dad, who died by suicide in 2024.

“He saw me as his daughter long before I fully said it out loud. And now, looking back, that moment is what stays with me, not how we lost him, but how much love was there while we had him,” Cabral said.

Emma Ostrander ‘25, a longtime attendee of Mercer’s campus walk, said she never previously had a personal connection to the cause. That changed in November 2025 when her mother died by suicide.

She had already shed tears before stepping up to the microphone, when she spoke about her past reluctance to share her story Saturday.

“When I first talked to Will about speaking here today, my immediate thoughts were ‘absolutely not,’” Ostrander told the crowd.

The Mercer graduate ultimately decided to share her story to talk about suicide prevention “honestly.” She said her mother’s death shed light on her own mental health issues and a newfound understanding of “struggling in silence.”

Brad Wilson ‘26 said his older brother died by suicide in June 2025. Over the summer, Wilson connected with his professor, Shonteria Johnson. 

Johnson helps oversee Mercer’s Biology Mentorship Program, of which Wilson is a part. They worked together to support Out of the Darkness and solidified the event’s largest partnership between campus organizations.

“I just want to prevent that from happening to anybody else’s family because I understand how tragic it was for my family,” Wilson said.

Zach Carman ‘26 said his father, John, died by suicide at 78. John Carman was a psychiatrist for more than 40 years and founded Carman Research in 1981. His research center focused on treatments for various cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s disease.

John lived with Alzheimer’s in his later years and Carman said that his dad would repeat the phrase, “I can’t take this anymore,” at “minor inconveniences.”

But since his father died by suicide, Carman said he began to question himself whether the phrase had been a “cry for help.”

“I felt like an imposter because how could I convince myself that I would ever be fit to help others in the future as a doctor when I couldn’t even help my own father now. This shame led me to a very dark place, and in the spring of 2024, I came very close to attempting suicide myself,” he said.

Carman said his life was saved after recognizing his dad’s impact. People who had not seen John in years told stories about how he changed their lives.

“Even the shortest of interactions are an opportunity to not only bring hope to those silently struggling, but to bring hope to all of us,” he said to finish his speech.