Internet friend saves life

Here's a sad but uplifting story from BBC.com:

A 16-year-old boy in the U.K. who is friends over the internet with a teenage girl from Maryland was suicidal, and he told the girl he planned to kill himself. Not taking his threat lightly, she told her mom what had happened, and they contacted police, who contacted the White House, who contacted the British embassy, who contacted police in England.

They finally narrowed their search down to where the boy would live based on his IP address, and after checking three other houses, they found his. He had overdosed on pils but was still alive, and he is now recovering.

The two are friends on Facebook, which, thankfully, is a much friendlier community than Justin.tv, where a boy followed through with his threat of suicide on webcam as others made fun of him. No authorities were contacted until hours after his dead body remained motionless on webcam for all to see.

Out of curiosity, I had searched the internet for evidence of these people's cruelty, and there was an unfortunate amount. I found cached discussions on message boards (which had been deleted) where he had posted his suicide note, only to have nearly every person make fun of him or urge him to go through with it. I also found recorded video of his dead body laying in the room as the police broke in, along with screen caps and transcripts of the chat room as it all happened.

Needless to say, it was depressing. So after that, it's nice to hear a story like this one, where a person is given a second chance instead of beat into their own grave.