Did depression kill pilot Vicki van Meter?

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It’s been a busy time between keeping my eye on the newest thing on the news and doing that volunteer thing for the Obama campaign.  Phone calls after phone calls after phone calls but only for a few more days ‘cuz voter registration for the PA primary pretty much is done as of Monday evening.

But I am calling no one on Easter Sunday.

Among the things that caught my eye was this sad story about a young woman who caught alot of people’s attention with her desire to go beyond herself.  Some people do not like to admit it but depression kills.  From the APWire:

“PITTSBURGH, Pa. - Vicki Van Meter, celebrated for piloting a plane across the country at age 11 and from Maine to Europe at age 12, has died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Crawford County coroner said. She was 26.

Van Meter died Saturday and her body was found in her Meadville home on Sunday.

Van Meter made national headlines in 1993 and 1994 when she made her cross-country and trans-Atlantic flights accompanied only by a flight instructor. Her instructors said she was at the controls during the entirety of both flights.

As a sixth-grader in September 1993, Van Meter flew from Augusta, Maine, to San Diego over five days. She had to fight strong headwinds and turbulence that bounced her single-engine Cessna 172 and made her sick.

At the time, she was believed to be the youngest girl to fly across the United States; the record was later broken.

Nine months later, Van Meter flew from Augusta to Glasgow, Scotland, and was credited with being the youngest girl to make a trans-Atlantic flight. She battled dizziness brought on by high altitude and declared upon landing: “I always thought it would be real hard and it was.”

Later she earned a degree in criminal justice from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania and spent two years with the Peace Corps in Cahul, Moldova. She recently worked as an investigative agent for an insurance company.

Her brother said she battled depression and opposed medication, but her family thought she had been dealing with her problems.

“She was unhappy, but it was hard for her to open up about that and we all thought that she was coping,” Daniel Van Meter said. “This really is a shock, because we didn’t see the signs.”

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Tags: suicide, medicine, depression, Vicki van Meter