Cop Saves Woman in Online Suicide Bid
 

Sun August 24, 2003 08:08 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...t&section=news

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian policeman rushed to the virtual rescue of a woman committing suicide online, gleaning enough personal details to alert emergency services and save her life, news agency Ansa reported on Saturday.
The 41-year-old woman announced in an Internet chat-room that she was going to kill herself and then began swallowing tablets to the horror of fellow chatters, who could see the suicide attempt unfolding via Web cam.

The policeman, Massimo Turbacci, kept talking to her, coaxing out her mobile telephone number, which allowed authorities to track down her home address -- in the town of Aversa, just outside Naples.

An ambulance raced to the house and took her to hospital where she is now out of danger.
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At first I thought, wow, the rescue was a great use of the Internet, then I wondered why would this woman attempt suicide in front of her Web cam *audience?* Cry for help, I would guess, but it negates the notion that she was serious in her attempt to actually kill herself.

15 secs of fame?

lunatic

The ones that really want to commit suicide don't look for an audience. You just find their bloated bodies. She does indeed need help though.

Agreed.

There was a case of a teenager who killed himself online a year or so ago. Maybe it was more. Other kids were in this chat room egging him on. He swallowed a shit load of pills apparently.

All suicide attempts are a cry for help. Even if they are successful, they still want help getting out of the funk/situation they're in.

Wow, that's bad. Glad the police officer was able to save her.

Well said. She was looking for help, in perhaps the most desperate way.

I'm with JBX on this

Granted it was a cry for help. But if those cries go unanswered...well.... Hopefully she realizes through this experience that there are people who do care about her.

I've read the chat transcript of that incident and there was only one or two people encouraging it, the rest of them were really scared for his welfare, but they didn't know any of his real details.

He wasn't doing it to kill himself, it seemed he was really only doing it because he wasn't quite right in the head and he wanted to see how many drugs he could take. The last couple of pics from his webcam are really quite disturbing. :hmm:

Not to split hairs, but are you saying that a *successful* suicide attempt means that the person succeded in killing him/herself?
And if so, how could this be a *cry for help*--unless one believes that help can be rendered after death?

This is going to get me in a hot pan o' flames...

The band Mudvayne once sang/bellowed, "Let me help you tie the rope around your neck. Let me help to talk you the wrong way off the ledge. Let me help you hold the glock against your head. Let me help you chain the weights onto your legs - get on the plank, fuck."

And that's how I feel about this shit. You want to die? Then die. Stop wasting my oxygen. You want to cry for help? Then cry for help verbally, and not in such an incredibly selfish way. It sickens me, these people who decide they're going to risk their own life for attention - and then they carry it on their sleeve like it's some sort of badge of honor. There's nothing honorable or cool or positive in anyway shape or form of having attempted suicide, or cut yourself, or thrown up every time you eat. It's not good, it's not healthy, and it is among the most selfish things a human being can do. There is no thought to others, only about how miserable one's own self is. As Dennis Leary once said, "'I'm just not happy. My life didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.' Yeah, join the fucking club, okay pal?" 90% of the people I've met that have been "diagnosed" (and I use that term looser than a 2 dollar whore) with bipolar or unipolar disease are schmucks who are looking for something other than themselves to blame for the utter uselessness, worthlessness and failure that is their life. And I've met a lot of these people. How did I meet all of them, you ask? Because I used to be that way. I used to pretend myself day in and day out that nobody loved me and nobody cared about me and it was just so goddamned amazing that my life was even as good as it was (and it wasn't) because it was all because of me. I used to be like that. I used to cut myself. I used to entertain what I thought were "serious" thoughts of suicide, thinking "no one will miss me, it won't matter." I've been to psychiatric wards on three separate occassions. I've met the people with real problems (the 14 year old who shot his own uncle in the head) and the people who don't (the guy who used a paper clip to etch an anarchy symbol on his arm because he thought it looked cool). Let me tell you, there are so many people out there whose only problem is themself. My message to them: get the fuck over it, get a job, go to school, find someone to love, and LIVE.

I congratulate succesful suicides on making this world a little better with their absence.

Dude.. wow.. I had bipolar at one stage too, chemical imbalance in the brain apparently, I can understand it from a scientific point of view. Took some pills and was better, never did any of the stuff you were talking about tho :eek:

But yeah.. tis sad when people seek attention this way, but it sometimes seems like the last resort at times.

i told you i was hardcore

Guess I'll join you in the fire.

One exception tho'--kids.
Kids that kill themselves or attempt to, don't have the cognitive abilities that an adult has. I give them the benefit of the doubt-- they need some caring adult in their life to get 'em help with their problems.

Double D - I second that. Kids - and in my eyes, this means people that are under high-school age - are the products of their parents and other adult persuasions. The adults are to be held responsible in that case.

If you know you are going to hurt peoples feelings or insult someone, maybe you could think twice about posting.


I like Mudvayne's music. Don't always care for their message.

Up to here I could see you point. Suicide is incredibly selfish and thoughtless. The variety of reasons that make people want to choose this path are so extreme that it is impossible to make broad generalizations.

Dennis Leary's life may have been rough in the beginning but he is doing pretty well for himself now.

OK. This is the point where you started to loose it.
I work with people who are bipolar, have clinical depression and many other mental problems.
Some of them have (or had before the problems started) very good lives.
They have chemical imbalances that cause serious and even life threatening conditions.
Your less then scientific and incredibly callus view of mental illness is hardly an accurate summation of the complex and difficult lives these people face.

I'm sorry to hear that.
If you need someone to talk to just PM me or drop by chat.
TFP is a place with people who do care and are willing to listen.
That is what community is all about

I wish it was that simple.
Working with and having close friends who have serious mental illness has made it clear to me that nothing is easy.
A medication that worked for a couple of years can stop working and you wind up worse then when you started.
An employer can change their medical insurance carrier and all of a sudden the support and care you needed become to expensive.
There are so many roadblocks to people with mental illness that I can't list them all.

I hope that you are shown compassion and kindness throughout your life.

Pills are for sissies.

beat me to it.

Yeah, as for the woman? I dont' think it was so much as just dying, but going out with a bang, so to speak. If she just committed suicide, then she wouldn't die... happy. she'd just end her life. I assume she was trying to get an audience so that she could die with 15 minutes of fame (while she was still alive). I figure that might seem like a morale boost to her self esteem, even tho she was still going to kill herself.

I hope things turn around for her.

Double D,

What I meant was that anyone contemplating suicide is looking for help. I don't think anyone ever REALLY wants to die and disappear, if they could have the chance to get some help and live. So, the fact that someone is holding the gun or needle or pills or whatever is the cry for help. Inside, they're saying "I need help to make life good again, because right now I see no way out but death."

That sums it up right there.

It almost feels like this is the karmic balance to that awful stupidity. Nice.

Even the chat robots were kind of egging that drugs guy on - how pathetic, being encouraged by a computer program.

I tried to kill myself a long time ago, but that full bottle of Flinstones just made me really healthy.