Editor’s note: This story focuses on the sensitive and critical topics of mental health, trauma, and suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or emotional distress, please call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
Introduction: The Unanswered Phone Call
In September 2021, John Gaal Sr. received a late-night phone call that would permanently alter the trajectory of his advocacy work. It was a Saturday evening, and a colleague was on the other end of the line, weeping. The colleague’s son had just died by suicide, and in the suffocating shock of the immediate aftermath, the father had no idea what to do, who to call, or how to process the unfolding nightmare.
Gaal, the director of worker wellness at the nonprofit Missouri Works Initiative, knew that exact feeling all too well. Four years earlier, he had lost his own son, John Gaal Jr., to suicide. In the immediate, paralyzing hours following that family tragedy, Gaal had experienced firsthand the profound vacuum of guidance and the absolute absence of a structured roadmap for the bereaved.
Drawing from his own deep well of grief, Gaal guided his colleague through those agonizing first steps. But the experience opened his eyes to a glaring systemic blind spot. In the months that followed, Gaal became an ad-hoc resource for others facing the same devastating crisis, fielding eight similar calls in a single 12-week stretch, and dozens more in the years since. In fact, he answered yet another frantic call the very night before speaking with Construction Dive.
These harrowing experiences drove Gaal to research, write, and publish academic work on what experts call suicide "postvention"—the critical, organized intervention required to support friends, family, and coworkers immediately following a death by suicide. As the construction industry continues to grapple with disproportionately high rates of mental health struggles, Gaal’s work offers an urgent blueprint for how companies must respond when the unthinkable happens on or off the job.
Chronology of a Crisis: From Personal Tragedy to Industry-Wide Advocacy
To understand why postvention is so desperately needed in modern workplaces, one must trace how the conversation around construction mental health has evolved—and where it still falls dangerously short.
- The Pre-2018 Era: For decades, construction culture was defined by a stoic, "tough-it-out" mentality. Mental health struggles were largely swept under the rug, viewed as personal weaknesses rather than workplace safety hazards. Data regarding industry-specific suicides was sparse, and structured corporate responses to mental health crises were virtually nonexistent.
- Circa 2017 (The Turning Point): John Gaal Jr. dies by suicide. For the elder Gaal, the tragedy initiates a deeply personal journey through grief, revealing a stark lack of institutional support, grief counseling protocols, or peer-reviewed resources for families navigating the immediate aftermath of suicide loss.
- September 2021: Gaal receives the late-night Saturday phone call from his distressed colleague. Realizing that the lack of an immediate, actionable crisis response protocol is a widespread systemic failure, Gaal transforms his personal grief into public advocacy. He begins taking calls from grieving families and colleagues at all hours.
- The Post-2021 Research Phase: Gaal deepens his study of suicide postvention, eventually publishing his findings in the International Journal of Vocational Education and Training. He establishes the concept of a three-part safety triangle—prevention, intervention, and postvention—arguing that industries have heavily focused on the first two while completely neglecting the third.
- Present Day: Gaal continues his work with the Missouri Works Initiative, traveling the country to educate trade unions, contractors, and construction executives on how to handle the acute aftermath of a suicide loss to prevent further tragedies.
Supporting Data: The Statistics Behind the Silence
The urgency of Gaal’s mission is underscored by alarming public health statistics regarding suicide rates, particularly within the male-dominated construction and extraction trades.
The Construction Industry Burden
According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the construction and extraction sector consistently records one of the highest rates of suicide by industry in the United States. Factors contributing to this grim reality include chronic physical pain, high-stress project deadlines, job insecurity, economic cyclicality, and a historically entrenched cultural stigma against seeking help.
The Postvention Research Gap
Despite the prevalence of workplace mental health initiatives, there remains a massive imbalance in academic and corporate preparedness. According to Gaal, peer-reviewed research heavily favors proactive measures over reactive healing:
- The 40-to-1 Ratio: For every peer-reviewed academic article written on suicide postvention, there are approximately 40 articles dedicated to suicide prevention.
- The 135-to-1 Impact Metric: Research cited from the University of Kentucky indicates that a single suicide profoundly impacts an average of 135 people. In a mid-sized construction company with 150 field and office workers, the ripple effect of one loss touches nearly the entire organization, demanding individualized strategies rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to grief.
Official Perspectives: Defining the Three-Legged Safety Triangle
In professional discussions, Gaal frequently uses a geometric metaphor to explain where companies fail and where they must improve.
Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention Defined
[ PREVENTION ]
(Awareness & Training)
/
/
/ THE
/ OVERLAPPING
/ TRIANGLE
/
[ INTERVENTION ] ------ [ POSTVENTION ]
(Recognizing Signs) (Aftercare & Healing)- Prevention (Awareness): This is the foundation of mental health safety. It involves broad educational campaigns, destigmatizing conversations, and ensuring workers understand that mental health is just as critical as physical safety on a job site.
- Intervention (Actionable Awareness): This occurs when a worker who has undergone mental health training observes warning signs in a peer—such as sudden behavioral shifts, expressions of hopelessness, or expressions of being a burden—and knows how to step in, ask direct questions, and connect that person with professional help.
- Postvention (Aftercare): Often referred to by Gaal as aftercare, this is the structured response enacted after a suicide has occurred. It focuses on stabilizing the surviving friends, family members, and coworkers who are thrust into the "eye of the storm."
The "Eye of the Storm" Reality
When Gaal receives phone calls from grieving individuals, the nature of their distress is always immediate and acute.
"None of those calls ever asked me, ‘John, what do I do three weeks, three months, three years from now?’ Every one of those calls said, ‘John, I’m in the eye of the storm. What the hell do I do right now?’" Gaal explains. "People are thirsting for this. They need a protocol."
Because grief in the immediate aftermath is chaotic and overwhelming, organizations cannot afford to improvise. They require a pre-established, step-by-step postvention playbook.
Implications for the Construction Industry: A Four-Phase Workplace Playbook
When a suicide impacts a construction company—whether the deceased is an office worker, a project manager, or a craft worker on a job site—the company’s response in the first few hours can dictate whether the tragedy remains isolated or triggers further despair within the workforce.
Gaal outlines four critical phases that organizations must execute during the acute postvention phase:
1. Coordination
Communication must be tightly managed from the outset. Companies should immediately task a dedicated team of three or four trusted individuals to run point on the crisis response.
- Media Relations: Designate a single spokesperson trained in journalistic protocols regarding suicide reporting. Failing to do so can result in mixed, inaccurate, or sensationalized messages reaching local press, causing further distress to the family.
2. Notification and Language
Before any company-wide announcement is made, leadership must coordinate directly with the victim’s family.
- Family Consent: Contact the family to establish boundaries, confirm what information they are comfortable sharing, and respect their privacy.
- Eliminating Stigma through Language: Society’s language around suicide is often steeped in historical, religious, and judgmental traditions—such as calling it a "sin" or a "crime," or using phrases like "committed suicide."
- The Proper Terminology: Companies must mandate the use of neutral, respectful phrasing, such as "died by suicide." This small linguistic shift helps strip away moral judgment, making it easier for grieving coworkers to process their emotions without feeling an added layer of social shame.
- Stopping the Rumor Mill: Gather employees promptly to share verified facts and explicitly encourage them to stay off social media until accurate information is ready to be released, thereby preventing misinformation and panic.
3. Communication and Mitigating Contagion
The primary medical danger in the immediate wake of a suicide is contagion—the well-documented phenomenon wherein individuals exposed to suicide face a statistically heightened risk of experiencing suicidal ideation themselves.
- Tailored Strategies: Because research shows one suicide impacts 135 people, a blanket announcement is insufficient. A company of 150 workers requires 150 nuanced approaches to grief support. How a close field crew processed their relationship with a coworker differs vastly from how an executive team knew them. Leadership must account for these varying degrees of proximity to the deceased.
4. Long-Term Support
Postvention does not end when the funeral concludes. Companies must offer sustained assistance to both surviving family members and employees.
- Group to Individual Transition: Initial briefings should address workers collectively to ensure everyone hears the same accurate information and feels a sense of shared community support. However, leadership and mental health professionals must quickly transition to individual outreach, checking in privately with workers who show signs of severe distress or trauma.
Conclusion: Preparing Before Disaster Strikes
The ultimate takeaway from Gaal’s research and lived experience is that hope cannot be the industry’s only strategy. Construction companies spend millions of dollars ensuring workers wear hard hats, harnesses, and high-visibility vests to protect against physical hazards; equal institutional rigor must be applied to psychological safety.
For contractors, union leaders, and project executives looking to safeguard their teams, preparation must be proactive rather than reactive.
"If you haven’t already undertaken steps towards suicide prevention and intervention, do so now," Gaal urges. "And then follow that up with a training in postvention, which is so important but so often overlooked."
By building robust postvention protocols today, construction organizations can ensure that if darkness ever strikes their workforce, they will not be left scrambling in the eye of the storm—instead, they will have a steady hand, a clear roadmap, and a structured path toward healing.
