Oct. 10, 2022 8:15p
(WGTD)---A production company that highlights off-the-field stories of Los Angeles Dodgers players has just released a powerful episode that focuses on Indian Trail graduate Gavin Lux and suicide prevention.
Lux—a second baseman for the Dodgers—had been childhood friends with Clay Davison.
As a 16-year-old in 2014, Davison committed suicide after sustaining injuries that hampered his ability to participate in boxing and football. Those injuries led to drug use and a downhill spiral.
The 40-minute video is part of a series of stories titled “Backstage Dodgers.” It features Lux returning to his home town and visiting with Clay’s mother, Kenosha Police Dept. Det. Felicia Labatore, whom Lux describes as his second mother.
In the video, Lux said the death of his friend didn’t sink in until the funeral. "That was probably the hardest part of it--it really hit at that moment," Lux says in the video.
Lux also wonders out loud if he could have done more to prevent the tragedy. But Labatore tells the film’s producers that she and others tried over and over again to persuade her son to get help, but that he wouldn’t listen. "I was begging him to get help and he would look right through me," she said.
After her son died, Labatore went on to become the police department’s first peer support program director. Former Police Chief John Morrissey says he’s convinced that the work of Labatore and her team have helped prevent suicides.
Labatore definitely found her calling. "You take that phone call--somebody is not doing well," she says. "Later we find out that they were very close to taking their own life and they didn't. It's so good."
-0-