The American Indian teenagers died one by one, all in order, as they had agreed in their suicide pact.

Seventeen teens have killed themselves in recent months in Cheyenne River, and the deaths were typical of teen suicides among American Indians, experts told a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, as they asked for funding for programs to target the problem.

“Some of these suicides were young men who had made a suicide pact with one another. They drew numbers, and decided to hang themselves in that order. One by one their families found these boys, often hanging in their homes, as their number came up,” said Julie Garreau, executive director of the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

While these suicides did not make the national news, the March 21 shooting attack by 16-year-old Jeff Weise, a Chippewa Indian living on the Red Lake reservation in Minnesota, made headlines around the world. Weise killed 10 people, including himself.

“We are heartbroken that it may have taken an incident like the school shootings at the Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota to bring national attention to the crisis our children are facing in Indian Country, but are so relieved that someone is finally hearing our voices,” Garreau told a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Indian reservations have extremely high rates of suicide, said U.S. Surgeon-General Dr. Richard Carmona.

“For 5- to 14- year-olds, the suicide rate is 2.6 times higher than the national average. And there is an even greater disparity in the later teenage years and into young adulthood,” Carmona said in testimony prepared for the hearing.

“The suicide rate for American Indian/Alaska Native youth aged 15 to 24 is 3.3 times higher than the national average.”

A combination of poverty and shame, along with alcoholism and drug abuse, were to blame, several experts told the hearing.

“Nationwide, 26 percent of the native population lives in poverty (including 38 percent of native children) versus 13 percent of all racial groups (including 18 percent of the children of all races), and only 8 percent of white Americans,” said psychologist Joseph Stone of the Grande Ronde Behavioral Health Program in Oregon and a Blackfeet Nation member.

Stone said he was overwhelmed with work and there were not enough counselors to help troubled Indian youth. Many would never seek help on their own anyway, he added.

Clark Flatt, president of The Jason Foundation in Hendersonville, Tennessee, whose son Jason killed himself at age 16, suggested bringing counseling directly to teens.

“We propose having a mobile counseling center - a customized RV (recreational vehicle) - that would on a regular basis provide counseling services to areas of a reservation,” he said.

Internet-based telemedicine may also help, Flatt suggested.

Garreau said teens would also benefit from simple activities.

“The students asked us for a Teen Center. With no mall, no movie theater, no bowling alley, few jobs and very long winters, there are very few healthy outlets for our teens,” she said. “By getting our teenagers ‘in the door’ with attractions like the basketball court and Internet cafe, we then have them as an audience for other health and wellness activities.”