A remarkable cross-country intervention from Idaho to the Bay Area of California and finally to Long Island allowed police to save a woman streaming her suicide attempt on Facebook Live from a car in Rockville Centre earlier this week, authorities said.
The surreal rescue began with a phone call from an Idaho crisis center on Wednesday morning to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California, saying they had spoken to a woman on the phone and via Facebook who revealed she wanted to end her life.
Dispatchers with the sheriff’s office immediately found the woman’s Facebook live stream and observed her activity as they tracked her cell phone, Sgt. J.D. Nelson told the Press.
The sheriff’s office “pinged” the woman’s cell phone to a street in Rockville Centre, and then passed off that information to Rockville Centre Village police. When police arrived they found the woman unconscious inside her car outside St. Agnes Cathedral.
In a Facebook post, the sheriff’s office said they were able to narrow the search to the specific street in which the woman’s car was located and used Google maps to identify the nearest building.
“It was pretty nerve-wracking,” Nelson said, adding that the woman had been cutting herself live on Facebook.
The woman was not identified and her current condition is unknown. According to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, the woman moved from China to Idaho and then eventually to California. Why she was on Long Island was still unclear. A Rockville Centre police spokesman was not available for comment.
“Due to the hard work and determination of the ACSO dispatchers, this woman was located across the country and her life was saved,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. “She will be getting the help she needs.”
