Facebook Friend Saves Teenager’s Life

I know I rag on Facebook quite a bit, but this story is truly amazing.

“A British teenager’s suicide note on Facebook sparked a transatlantic rescue mission which saved his life.

The 16-year-old boy’s threat to kill himself, sent to a girl 3,600 miles away, in Maryland, America, was the starting point for an extraordinary race against time.

When she read his private post at 11.30pm on Wednesday night his American friend told her parents, who called the local state police.

The only details they were given were his name and the fact he went to school in Oxforshire [sic].

Within one hour the girl’s distress call was passed all the way across the across the Atlantic to Thames Valley Police via a White House Special Agent, the British Embassy in Washington DC and The Metropolitan Police in London.

Armed with scant facts from his Facebook profile, Thames Valley Police Officers turned to other internet sites, including Google and online electoral roll search services to trace him.

They managed to narrow down the boy’s home to eight possible addresses, dispatching officers to each one.

At 2.30am, three hours after his message was sent the boy was found at the fourth address, alive but suffering from an overdose of prescription pills.

The boy, who has not been named, was rushed by ambulance to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where he made a full recovery.”

You can read the full story here at The Times.