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Flagler teen cuts short a promising life; family members wonder why

News-Journal - 4/15/2019

April 15-- Apr. 15--Everything seemed to be going well for 18-year-old Nick Urban.

He had graduated from Matanzas High School in Palm Coast. He was planning on earning a computer science degree and then enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. Urban, a musician, chose the Marines because he believed it had the best band in the military.

Urban picked up his high school transcripts to mail to the Texas school where he planned to study computer science. A week later on Sept. 11, 2018, he picked up a gun and shot himself.

His mother, Sue Urban, does not know what drove her son, who faced a bright future, to end his life. What she does know is that she wants to do whatever she can to spare others the horrible pain that suicide caused her family.

"Hiding it doesn't help," she said. "I've learned through years of experience through being a paramedic and seeing other people's suffering. When you shut down and you don't deal with the situation, nothing is being solved. By addressing it head on and continuing to find answers, that's what's going to help that next person, and my son's story might be able to save somebody else."

The News-Journal collected and analyzed every local report of suicide and attempted suicide in 2018. The effort was part of a first-of-its kind overall analysis of every incident in which a person was shot in Volusia and Flagler counties.

Urban was one of two 18-year-olds to commit suicide in 2018, making them the two youngest to take their own lives.

[TRUTH ABOUT SHOOTINGS: Tap here to read all the stories as they're rolled out]

[HOW WE REPORTED THIS PROJECT]

Sue Urban keeps a memorial to her son just inside her home in Palm Coast. Two large photos of him are on a table. In between the photos is a simple white box holding Nick's ashes. She hopes to spread them in Ireland someday. There are other mementos with meanings linked to the young life lost. A beer stein lists Nick's name along with all his classmates who graduated from Matanzas High School in 2018. His high school diploma is next to the stein. A U.S. Marine Corps flag, a bottle of Fiji water, his favorite, and a candle are all on the table.

"He's always with me. He's always here. I feel him around me," Sue Urban said, "Whether there's an afterlife or not, I feel like there is. He's still here. He is our guardian angel. He's watching over us. Little things will happen and will make us say, 'Hi Nick, we know you're here. We love you, bud.' "

Sue Urban said they had named their younger son, Nicholas D'Artagnan Urban. "D'Artagnan" was for a central character in the novel "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas. She and her ex-husband got the idea for the name after seeing the movie "The Man in the Iron Mask" while she was pregnant with Nick.

Nick was a skilled musician who played the soprano and baritone saxophones, clarinet, piano and steel drums.

"He was one of those kids that could play by ear. He could hear something and then play it," his mom said.

His attitude could also change moods for the better. He would go out of his way to help someone who was having a difficult day, she said.

"Nick was the kid that would walk into a house or walk into a room and the whole room, the vibe of the room, would change because he was always happy and smiling," Sue Urban said.

The question of why he decided to end his life remains. Sue Urban said Nick had been hit hard by the death of his friend Michelle Taylor, a 16-year-old Matanzas band member who was struck by a car in March 2017 as she walked along Lakeview Boulevard, a dark stretch of road in Palm Coast without street lights or sidewalks.

Nick Urban's grief motivated him to join others to push for more street lights in Palm Coast, and the efforts got results. The city announced in November a draft plan to install street lights along Lakeview and Belle Terre Parkway this year at a cost of about $147,000. Forty-two new streetlights switched on last month along a new pathway running by Lakeview Boulevard.

Nick Urban had become depressed after his friend's death and had seen a counselor. But he seemed to be doing OK and had shown no signs of being suicidal before he took his life. The last time he saw a counselor was about a year before he took his life.

The Flagler County School District has worked hard to prevent suicides, said Colleen Conklin, vice chair of the Flagler County School Board. Since the suicide of a student in 2013, the school district has added additional guidance counselors, mental health counselors and psychologists in all the schools, she said.

But she said it can be difficult to get some families to accept services. About 10 percent of families reject them. Sometimes families want to keep things private. Other times cultural reasons are behind the rejection.

"If your child was sick with a fever you'd take them to a doctor. If a child or an adult had cancer, we wouldn't think twice about them receiving treatment. But when it comes to mental health, we don't want to do that, Conklin said. "In some ways, that stigma attached to mental wellness is still there."

Sue Urban, though, said there were no signs her son was about to commit suicide. The Sunday before his death he had spent an enjoyable day with his father at a water park in Georgia.

Both Sue Urban and her ex-husband had been battling health problems, and she thinks that perhaps weighed on her son. She had had open heart surgery in April 2018 and a heart attack in July. Nick's father, Jason Urban, has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The two are divorced and have another son, Zach, who is 20 and graduated from Matanzas High School in 2016.

"He was struggling (with fears) that he was going to lose both of us," she said of Nick.

She said that Nick and his brother both were taught about guns when they were only 3- or 4-years-old. They would go out with their parents to a range to fire .22-caliber pistols. As they grew older, they would try out bigger handguns -- .40-caliber and 9 mm pistols.

She said Nick's suicide using a gun has not changed her attitude about firearms. She still owns a gun and so does Nick's father.

"I've always been pro gun," Sue Urban said. "Both of my children learned how to use guns when they were very young. I taught them how to respect them and properly take care of them and not to play with them."

She said Nick took the gun he used to commit suicide out of his father's gun safe. He knew where the key was, he was 18, and he was trusted with the weapon.

"It hasn't changed my opinion on firearms," she said. "I still believe everyone has the right to bear arms and be able to protect themselves and their property with firearms."

But experts say guns and a suicidal person are a particularly bad mix, and last year's numbers bear that out. In 2018, all 89 people who attempted suicide with a gun in Volusia and Flagler counties were successful in killing themselves. By contrast, of all 365 local suicide attempts that did not involve a gun last year, only 10 were successful.

Nick did not confide in his mother what was troubling him. He didn't tell his brother Zack, even though the two were buddies as well as brothers.

In the days before he took his own life, Nick also deleted his social media accounts.

"It wasn't like there was a detailed note or anything like that. The messages that he did leave were very cryptic as far as, you know, 'It's not your fault I did this. It's my choice,' " Sue Urban said. "The only thing that he really indicated that was bothering him was the statement that someone was trying to ruin his life and they pretty much had."

But there has been no answer as to whom Nick was referring.

His mother carries on, hoping to prevent another young life to be lost.

"My strength comes from knowing that I can somehow help somebody else," Sue Urban said, her voice breaking as she struggled with her emotions. "And I will do whatever I have to do to make sure it doesn't happen to another family because it's torn our family apart. We are missing a piece. I miss a piece of my heart every day."

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