2 days ago
Dad Lost 3 Toenails Preparing for 100-Mile Race. But It's Worth It to Honor Brothers Who Died by Suicide Years Apart
Dr. Patrick McEnaney was 12 years old when his brother Kevin died by suicide in 1985. About a decade later, his brother Dan also took his own life
Now, Patrick is preparing for his seventh 100-mile race to raise funds for a suicide prevention program
"It's a program that I wish was around when I was growing up," the surgeon tells PEOPLEDr. Patrick McEnaney was 12 when his older brother died by suicide in 1985. Eleven years later, while he was in his third year of medical school, his other brother also took his own life.
Now 52, Patrick is honoring them both as he prepares for the Western States Endurance Run, the oldest 100-mile trail race in the world, which starts on Saturday, June 28, in Olympic Valley, Calif. — and ends 30 hours later in Auburn.
His goal? To raise $30,000 for suicide prevention and mental health care access for young people and families in his home state of Massachusetts.
Specifically, he's fundraising for Riverside Community Care, a community-based nonprofit that offers behavioral healthcare and human services, and implements the SOS Signs of Suicide program in schools across the United States.
'It's a program that I wish was around when I was growing up because suicide has always been the thing that you don't talk about,' Patrick, a surgeon at UMass Memorial Health, Milford Regional Medical Center in Milford, tells PEOPLE.
Patrick has been running to support such programs for the past 15 years and has raised more than $100,000 for Riverside alone. He says that if he and his family had better understood the signs of suicide and how to respond before his 16-year-old brother Kevin died in the 1980s, 'my life would be very different right now.'
The McEnaney boys — Kevin, Dan and Patrick – grew up in West Boylston, a small town in Worcester County. Patrick looked up to his older brothers and remembers the day that he caught a rainbow trout after Kevin taught him how to bait his own hook.
'I just remember the look on his face when I caught that fish, and we put it in our little lunch box,' says Patrick, who took the fish home for their mom to cook for that night's dinner.
His older brothers also had fun teasing him, but that changed before Kevin's death. Patrick remembers finding his brother lying in bed with self-inflicted cuts on his chest one night in 1985. When the young boy touched his brother to see if he was still alive, Kevin grabbed Patrick's hand. "Don't tell mom or dad,' Patrick remembers Kevin telling him. Despite the warning, Patrick, then 12, told his parents the following week. 'I don't think that they knew what to do as well,' he says.
A week after that, the eldest McEnaney brother died by suicide.
'It was painful for many years,' says Patrick of the impact on his family.
His father moved out three months later and while he was still a present force in their lives, Patrick and Dan were primarily raised by their mom, a pharmacist. For the next decade, Patrick had a recurring dream of getting off a school bus, but Kevin stayed on, no matter how much Patrick pleaded with him.
Dan was also devastated. About a decade later, in 1996, Patrick was in his third year of medical school, on his psychiatry rotation, when he grew concerned for about Dan, then 26, who was "going through some tough times."
'I could tell every time I called him that his head was not in the right place,' says Patrick, who drove an hour and a half to see Dan. At dinner, Patrick asked his older brother if he wanted to end his life. Upset that he'd posed the question, Dan told Patrick that he was 'fine.'
'You and I both lived through absolute hell for 10 years,' Patrick remembers Dan telling him. 'Do you honestly think that I would ever put you through that? I know how painful that was, and I can't do that to you."
A week after that emotional conversation, Dan was dead.
In the wake of Dan's death, Patrick says that he focused on medical school and his surgical residency, which 'helped bury' the pain.
When he met his wife Tracy — a respiratory therapist — in the summer of 1999, Patrick says he knew she was "the one" after their second date.
She also shared a birthday with Dan and his girlfriend.
By that October, Tracy and Patrick were married and since then have been busy raising the two daughters and the two sons that they share.
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While his family brings him joy, Patrick says that running brings him 'peace of mind' and reminds him of running track with Dan in high school. In 2011, Patrick ran his first race for suicide prevention before he transitioned to ultramarathons.
The race on June 28, which will involve climbs of more than 18,000 feet and intense summer heat, is Patrick's seventh 100-mile race. On average, he can finish that distance in 27 hours when competing, he says.
The surgeon has been training by running at the gym, interspersed with trips to the sauna to prepare for the more than 100 degree temperatures.
So far he's lost 23 lbs. and three toenails, but says it's worth it.
For Patrick, the test of endurance makes him feel closer to the brothers he lost. He wants to help ensure that other families won't go through that same, life-altering pain.
'I know that every step of the way that my brothers are with me,' says Patrick. 'I'm going to fight to get across that finish line, no matter what.'
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to
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