For his work, he was presented the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, as well as the 2006 Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association.

"I thought I would go back to the insurance business — I still carry an insurance card," he says. "But I've got to follow this up. This gets bigger and bigger."

Encouraged to put his experiences and insights in a book, he hand-wrote the first 30 pages and then told the rest of the story to a tape recorder. A year after he began the book, he finished it, in May 2008. It proved to be cathartic.

"It was tough," he says. "There were times I cried."

As for his lifelong struggle with depression, he says, "I got treatment, and I am in good shape. I do take medication, but I also see someone to debrief occasionally after I've been out speaking and giving presentations for a while."

Eric and Shelly Hipple have been married for 18 years and have had two children together, Taylor and Tarah. Jann (now Parker) lives in Salt Lake City. Erica has been accepted to Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich.

Hipple believes he has found his calling. His life is more under control now, although occasionally the thrills seem to find him. In 2005, he made headlines by attacking and disarming a knife-wielding man at a party.

"The guy with the knife was threatening several people and had cut one already," says Hipple. "I just tackled him and took away the knife. It was more of a reaction than anything ... probably training from all the interceptions I threw in my career."

As for the pain and loss that have so defined the second and third chapters of his life, Hipple prefers to remember Jeff another way. "He was just a wonderful, happy kid who was very empathetic and took on other people's pain," he says. "Oddly enough, he never drank or smoked. Those things are usually involved in suicide. I've learned to forget about the way Jeff died and be happy with the 15 years I had with him."

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E-mail: drob@desnews.com