Imagine opening up a social media platform and reading a
post leading you to believe someone may be contemplating suicide - What would
you do? This scenario recently landed in the lap of a teenage Colorado girl. It
was no accidental discovery though; this young lady is part of a loosely knit
group of people who form Compassion
Alert on the microblogging website, Tumblr.com. Tumblr is a site where people can post just
about anything, like photos, videos, music, quotes, or basically anything
impacting their lives.
Compassion Alert is a group and page formed on Tumblr to
assist those contemplating suicide.
"Compassion Alert's mission is to help Tumbloggers execute 'reverse
cyber-bullying'. We strive to let those who think they are alone know that they
are not, with a strong focus on those who are considering suicide." The page was created by a 19-year-old young
lady named Madden. The page advises
those contemplating suicide to seek professional and public safety assistance,
immediately. But, moreover, the page
also acts as a message conduit to notify Compassion Alert's followers about
messages and posts by other Tumblr members, where indications of potential
suicide or depression are present.
Messages are categorized by severity and then posted. Compassion Alert members will acknowledge the
post and advise if they can attempt communication with the depressed or
suicidal individual. Their presence can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Like other members of Compassion Alert, our Colorado teen
was volunteering her time to review and respond to alerts one evening, not too
long ago. She came across an alert that
said a teenager had posted a photo and messages on Tumblr talking about
committing suicide. The Colorado girl
looked further into the postings and was able to determine the suicidal teen
possibly lived in Arcadia, CA. Concerned
for the safety of the suicidal teen, the volunteer called the Arcadia Police
Department and reported the posts, asking the police for assistance.
The police dispatcher taking the call was not familiar with
Tumblr, other than it was a social media platform. The dispatcher took the information and
sought the advice of a patrol supervisor, who was better versed in Tumblr. The supervisor was able to cross-reference
the possible victim's information between Tumblr and Facebook, with other
departmental resources, and located a friend of the victim. The victim's friend
was able to provide a home address for the victim. Officers went to the
victim's home and with the help of the victim's parents, appropriate medical
and professional assistance was obtained for the teen.
This story is a great example of volunteerism and caring at
its best. From Madden taking time to create and monitor Compassion Alert, to
the young Colorado teen caring enough to get involved, and to the teamwork
displayed by public safety personnel, each individual deserves
acknowledgement. Job well done! Thankfully, staff was familiar enough with
social media to have a positive impact on this incident. Take note public safety - train your
personnel in new technology, terminology, and Internet based platforms used by
your community. Traditional response and
investigative means for handling calls for service may not work in the virtual
or Internet based society where we now live.
This incident is also an example of how social media can
play a role in saving lives. Many people
share personal information about their lives quite openly on various social
media platforms. A good majority of this
information can place persons in danger or perhaps cause them to be victimized
by outsiders viewing the posts. Thankfully, the outsiders viewing this post and
others like it were doing so while looking out for the safety of another. In this case, social media and volunteerism
contributed to quite possibly saving a life.
Great timing for this post since we are acknowledging the work of all
volunteers this week as National
Volunteer Week 2012.
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