♪
You have reached the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline,
also serving the Veterans Crisis Line.
If you are in emotional distress or suicidal crisis,
we are here to help.
If you are a U.S. military veteran
or current service member or are calling about one,
please press one now.
Thank you for calling the Veterans Crisis Line.
My name is Luis. How can I help you?
My name is Scott. I'm with the Veterans Crisis Line.
Veterans Crisis Line. This is Robert.
Right. Now, I know you said that you have a knife nearby you.
Do you agree to not use that knife while I put you on hold?
What happens when you start saying,
"I'm gonna take that .22 and put it to my heart"?
So one option is driving your car into the tree,
but you told me that that's not
an option you're gonna take today.
But putting a gun in your mouth
is not a solution
that we want to discuss today, sir.
Sound like you've been dealing with this
for a long time today.
You were sitting in your car with the belt
around your neck since 8 A.M. Wow.
Now, the last thing, did he say in the email
that he's thinking about killing other people?
I'm really proud of you for stepping forward.
OK, where were you stationed?
So twice you tried to hang yourself before?
Do you want me to send someone there for you?
Veterans Crisis Hotline.
You got injured while you were on active duty?
Were you ever diagnosed with PTSD?
If there's anything that we can do
for you... Later tonight even;
I mean, any time... We're here around the clock.
What branch of the military were you?
Air Force?
So you're saying that...
What you're telling me is that people have
to do something drastic before they get help?
That's what you're saying?
I understand that you're in a lot of pain,
that you're hurting.
I understand that you can't work.
I understand that you're having flashbacks.
I understand that you're having
repetitive dreams, night sweats.
That's a lot of stress for one person.
You want to be able to help your family.
Do you have any weapons in the house besides yourself?
Because I know you told me you're your own weapon.
No, Kenneth. You can't close this chapter.
I'm not gonna leave you. I'm not gonna go anywhere.
I'm gonna stay right with you.
If you can't tell me that you're not thinking of suicide,
I will send an ambulance and a police officer,
and I will do a rescue.
You're not telling me that you're gonna be OK.
Can you safety plan with me?
No. I can't do that. I'm sorry.
You have five children.
You have a wife, and you have a lot to live for, so...
He is 46 years old, African American.
He refused to answer any safety questions.
He did state that he was his own weapon.
He is a former Marine. He might put up a fight.
OK. What's that?
You're gonna go in your closet?
In the closet on the floor.
Tell me what's going on. Let's go slow.
Can you talk to me about the images in the dark?
Bodies are in the water?
So the bodies are facedown in the water.
You can't help the bodies.
There's too many.
You know, it doesn't mean that you failed.
Kenneth, Kenneth, let's slow down, OK?
Kenneth, did you...
Kenneth, did you do anything?
Why are you breathing so heavy right now?
Kenneth, what are you about to do?
What's going on?
You need to take care of your kids, Kenneth.
You're their father.
You're their dad, OK? No one can replace you, OK?
No one can replace you. You're their father.
You're gonna be the one that they look for.
I can't take care of your kids.
I'm not a Marine.
Their dad is a Marine.
You know what that means to them?
Give me that chance to help you.
What's that noise in the background.
You're gonna let me talk to her?
OK. Hello, ma'am.
This is Darlene calling from the Veteran's Crisis Line.
I was talking with your husband Kenneth.
He was not able to report to me that he was gonna remain safe.
We are sending the police
to talk with him.
It's called a welfare check.
I've been on the phone with him for over an hour or so.
Are the police there yet?
Ma'am? Hello?
She hung up.
The police are on scene.
She said that they were on scene, but I didn't hear them.
I don't know if they are, but she hung up.
On scene? OK. Great. Thank you so much.
- They're there. - They're there?
- Yeah. - Thank you.
No problem.
Thank you very much.
Are you OK?
That was a long, very hard one, you know?
Yeah.
You're getting a hug
whether you want one or not.
Oh, thank you very much, honey.
How old was this guy?
- He's 46. - Jesus.
He's got five children.
He was in Afghanistan and Iraq.
OK. So that's where he was?
Yes. He was.
And that was some of the worst fighting,
when they first started in Afghanistan.
Well, he kept talking about bodies floating in the water.
I just had a call with a guy
who just left talking with me
and was back in Lebanon,
and they couldn't get hold
of the communications or call anybody
or help anybody, and there were
dead bodies and bleeding people, you know,
and I kept saying to him, "You're here.
"You're on the phone with me.
"It's all right. Keep talking.
You're on the phone with me now"...
Mm-hmm.
And at the end of the conversation,
he thanked me for grounding him.
You did your work. You did good.
Yeah.
Do you remember what you said when you started here?
Do you remember?
"I don't know how I'm gonna
be able to do this."
- Remember that? - Yes. I do.
Yup, yup. I do. Yup.
♪
- Bob... - Huh?
Can you grab that off the printer and get it to HSS?
How do you spell your last name?
Give it to one of these guys there.
He is in the preparatory stages.
Yeah. Sanchez, this is Robert
calling you from the Department of Veteran's Affairs,
the federal government's Veterans Crisis Line.
We got a veteran who's in the process
or possibly going into the process
of cutting himself with a razor
to bleed out and commit suicide.
If you cut yourself to where you're bleeding out?
That's permanent.
That's, the kids can't see you anymore.
He is struggling with some
PTSD episodes at this point.
So how many years have you been suffering
with the PTSD and the nightmares?
We're gonna stay on the line with him, hopefully,
until you can get out there.
Barbara, I'm getting on IM.
I've heard lots of people cry, and you know what?
Sometimes tears are the catharsis
that you need to let out some stuff.
I mean, I know that your having seen this guy get shot
in the face was really an awful thing, but...
Ay ay ay, man.
At the same time, it wasn't your fault,
and I feel like you are blaming yourself somehow.
I got two cars and an ambulance en route.
So when you say that you're talking about
an enemy combatant that you killed...
Barbara, IM.
We're waiting on the police
because the police have to go and make sure
that it's safe for EMS to go in
because he threatened to cut himself open
with a razor blade, and that alone
will stop EMS from going in on their own.
They have to wait for the police.
This is the difficult part,
waiting for the police to get there,
hoping that he doesn't do something.
Did you ever know anybody else
in your unit to die of suicide?
They should be there any second now.
He hung up on me.
OK, and that might be
because he heard something.
No. He's crying. He's exhausted.
Even on a routine call,
we shouldn't wait this long.
I'm gonna try to call him back.
I'm gonna call the police back.
Brian? OK.
Hey, Sanchez, it's Robert again.
Any chance we know where the police
might be at this point?
I called it in about 1:15 my local time.
OK. There you go.
Did you take some of your pills?
We're trying to really keep him on the line
until you guys get on scene.
Thank you so much. Bye now.
The biggest problem is struggling with your PTSD
and how it's affecting you daily
and how it's affecting your family.
You're just so lost inside your PTSD...
She's calming him down.
There's no shame in asking for help.
Would you be willing to take those razor blades
and just set them out on your front porch?
Oh, come on.
What's that?
This is ridiculous.
- Brian? - That's ridiculous.
That's almost 30 minutes.
Wait a second. Who's there?
Oh...
Is it your drug...
OK. Is it the police?
Veterans Crisis Line. This is Robert.
Go to the door, please. We called the ambulance.
Police have to go because of the blades.
All right. Hold on a second.
I think he might've
answered the door, Sarge.
Hang on. Barbara, did he speak to...
No. He won't answer the door.
Would you please open the door for them?
OK. See? I told you.
Can your first responders
on the porch see...
Is there somebody standing right there talking to you?
He's telling my responder he put
the razor blades out on the front porch.
He's talking to them.
He finally opened the door, but somebody hung up on me.
He opened the door, Sarge.
Somebody is there, Bob.
Officer Grody? Grohe. Hi.
This is Barbara from the Veterans Crisis Line.
All right, Bob. We got him.
We got him, Sergeant.
Thank you so much for helping us, Sarge.
Take good care.
- OK. He is... - Nice.
He's had a pint of vodka, and he also did heroin,
cocaine, and marijuana last night with it.
Yeah. He's been having really bad problems
with PTSD nightmares,
and he was planning to bleed out.
I've been involved in rescues
where we've lost a vet, where he has committed suicide.
We go through the whole range of emotions.
At least I do. I get angry and very sad.
I start to question whether I did a good enough job.
"Could I have found him faster?
"Was I doing all the things that I was taught to do?
Did I make any mistakes, and how dare you take your life?"
All those things go through my mind,
but then my supervisor
will usually come up, and we'll talk.
The responder and I will talk,
and then we get back to work.
We get back to work as fast as we can.
We got other vets to work with.
♪
It's ultimately
the veteran's decision if they're gonna live or die.
It's literally in their hands, and as a responder,
you have to have a really good grasp of that.
You can help them find reasons for living,
reasons to not do it, but the decision is theirs.
How old are you, Michael?
You're 20?
What made you go into the Marine Corps?
What's that clicking I hear in the background?
You're playing with the clip?
OK.
Do you have the gun right there with you, too?
OK. I get that.
If you feel, you know, that gives you some security
to have the clip in your hand, and you want to, you know,
toss that around, I'm OK with that,
but if you could agree to not use it while we're on the phone,
that would make me feel comfortable.
Can we agree to that?
OK. Thank you.
So you come from a military family?
Eight months ago, you got wounded?
OK. All right, and you said that you got a Purple Heart?
OK, and the the battle that you got wounded in,
was that over in Afghanistan, as well,
and you lost some friends during that?
Joseph?
So you grew up together, and then your lives
kind of went their separate ways.
Then you came back together?
He was 21? So you watched him die?
Did he know that you were holding him when he died?
Was he alert enough to know that?
Does that bring you any type of comfort to know that you
were able to be there with him when he died?
Tell me what he'd be thinking right now if he knew
what you were going through, if he knew that you
were contemplating suicide.
He'd kick your ass? OK.
So sounds like he's a good friend.
Do you think that you'd be able
to get yourself some help for him?
And it sounds like you love your girlfriend,
and it sounds like you love her daughter.
Do you think that you love them enough to reach out
and to try and get yourself some help?
OK.
When you were over in Afghanistan
and you were facing battle, you did things
to prepare yourself for that battle.
Is that right?
You would have a weapon that worked.
You would have protective gear, and you would have people
that you depended on that could help you through that,
and you wouldn't think about going into battle
and leaving one of those things out.
Is that correct?
So what I hear you're doing is, you're home,
and you're facing a battle
just as serious as the one over there,
and you're doing it without the proper support.
All right.
So your girlfriend is gonna come home,
and that was the thing that was gonna
either have you commit suicide or not.
So now that she's coming home, you think you're gonna be OK?
Michael, I really want you to give some thought
about reaching out to the VA and getting yourself some help, OK,
because they really can help you, OK?
All right. You take care.
All right. Bye-bye.
And while we were on the phone,
he was playing with a clip.
I could hear, like, the gun
going back and forth.
- So that was... - Are you OK?
Yeah. It was a little...
You know, he went into detail about his friend
dying over in battle.
So that was a little...
- And that's the one... - And not, like, gory detail,
not, you know... Like, just emotional,
"I held him in my arms as he died."
- Sure. - You know, so that was a little...
Yeah. He's reliving all of that.
So how did it end?
It was really abrupt.
He decided that was her on the other line.
"She's gonna come home. I'm gonna be OK.
Thank you. I'll call back."
- Hmm, OK. - So it was real...
Well, let's hope that's the case.
You did a good job with it.
Thank you.
♪
So are you safe for me to have Luis call you?
OK.
OK. Do you...
So you are having thoughts of suicide?
OK.
OK. Luis has your phone number right now, OK?
OK.
So it's all you.
You want me to use yours?
Call. If you can call him,
I'm going to disconnect with him.
Jerry? My name is Luis.
How you doing?
I want was in the Army. I just retired.
Is someone with you right now, Jerry?
How you doing? Are you his mother?
OK.
What time did he start watching the news?
Does he have a lot of flashbacks?
Has he talked about suicide, hurting himself?
He's just having an emotional breakdown right now?
OK. Well, what do you feel?
Do you feel that he's safe right now,
or do you feel that he needs to go to the hospital?
I mean, has he ever had an episode
where you thought that he wasn't gonna be safe?
OK.
Now, how do you think he would feel if I did call an ambulance?
I mean, protocol is, you know, usually the first ones
that show up are the police.
They make sure there's no weapons.
They make sure that there's, you know, any animals
or anything that can hurt, you know, the EMTs
when they arrive, and then the EMTs come shortly after.
OK.
Well, if you feel that it's gonna get out of control,
then, you know, you can give us a call back yourself, OK,
and then we'll call the rescue.
OK. You have a good one, ma'am.
Bye.
Well, the veteran's mother was with him, and, apparently,
he's always having, like, an emotional breakdown
every time he watches the news and he sees...
He served in Lebanon during Lebanon.
He said, "This shit is still going on, you know,
"and it's not fucking ending,
and, you know, I served there, you know?"
Then he started to cry,
and that's when he put his mother on the phone.
I've lost two soldiers in Afghanistan, and, I mean,
it affected me, because that's another human being,
but I think the hardest thing that hit me
was when I came back and I went to work in a unit
dealing with wounded warriors in a warrior transition unit,
and a buddy of mine hung himself,
and nobody saw the signs.
You know, that was hard.
No matter how much training I've had in the army on suicide,
you know, or no matter what my degree is in, you know,
when when it's all said and done,
this is another human being on the other line, you know,
that's reaching out for me at that moment.
He's giving me that five minutes or that ten minutes
or whatever timeframe to help him, you know,
and I can either help him, you know, or, you know,
he's fell through the cracks, and he's become a statistic,
you know, and that's my job, is to make sure that he doesn't
become a statistic, that we help him or her.
♪
No veteran will tell you that they went to war
to kill a child or to kill a civilian.
It's the reality of war.
It's the nature of war and of violence.
Talk to any Vietnam veteran.
They'll tell you, their orders were shoot anything that moves.
Can you imagine what that must be like to be 17
and scared out of your mind and to get that order
and try to fit in with your unit and shoot anything that moves,
and then it's a family?
What's that like?
I'm glad that you called today, Stan.
I'm glad you picked up the phone.
How long ago did you take the pills?
OK. Stan, I want you to know that I'm gonna have
someone come get you, OK, but I want you to stay
on the phone with me until they get there.
Just stay on the line with me, all right?
Hi. Yes, ma'am.
I have a veteran on the line with one of my responders
that has initiated an overdose of pills.
Listen. I want you to know that they're coming, OK?
Twelve hydrocodone and twelve muscle relaxers.
I know you're getting tired, Stan,
but I need you to stay with me, OK?
He is at the campground at Rollins Lake.
They give you a sticker to put in your campsite?
Oh, you're just squatting or something?
Are you sitting on the ground outside?
You said your Jeep was red?
And it was off of Route 174.
He said he's squatting,
so he doesn't have a space rented out to him.
He is in a red Jeep.
I know it's hard to walk, but I really need you
to go outside, OK, so that they can find you
real quick when they get there.
My responder says he's fading pretty fast.
Trying to get to the bench?
He's on the bench outside the tent.
He's a former Marine.
OK. I'm talking to my colleague.
They're on the way, OK?
Three minutes out?
OK. I just got the message
that they're about three minutes away.
You're doing a good job, Stan.
Just hang in there, OK?
You OK?
OK. Is that the siren I hear?
Say again?
Oh, good. They're there. OK.
Yes. They are on site.
Good.
Just stay on the phone with me, OK, till they're there.
OK. Great.
Thank you so much for your help.
OK. Bye-bye.
OK. OK, Stan. Take care.
All righty.
OK.
They got there.
It was a tough one.
We are like a firehouse.
There are times when it's relatively quiet,
but when the need arises and people need to work,
this place is as serious as a heart attack.
We're a national crisis line in upstate New York,
and he called our hotline this morning.
All we have is a first name and a cell phone number.
This guy called up.
It was a very short call, very little information,
but the information was concerning.
He said, "I just want to give you a call,
thank you at the hotline for everything you do,
and let you know that I'm done," or, "it's over."
He gave his name, his first name only.
Josie, who was the responder that got that call,
tried to engage him immediately.
He told me he was 20 years old
with four to five deployments.
Tried to engage him. He hung up.
So obviously, he was crying out for help.
So we got that brief amount of information in a phone call
that lasted all of a minute, maybe two minutes, nothing.
And he's not answering.
He won't pick up.
You could try that again while she's doing this.
No, I tried, like, four times already,
but I don't want to do too much
and then have him turn off his phone.
- How many deployments? - He's said four or five.
Can't be that age.
- Well... - Really?
20- or 21-year-old person in the military,
how many deployments could they have?
Could they have four or five?
- So it could be. - Maybe.
- See? - Here we go.
We get a lot of calls from just, you know,
first names and cell phones.
Sometimes we can plug them in and find info right away.
Like, if you were to take your phone number
and plug it into a database, it might come up as your name,
but in this case, nothing came up on his cell phone number
except that his cell phone provider was Verizon.
Hi. My name is Maria. I'm calling from
the Veterans Crisis Center in Upstate New York.
I called Verizon and asked for their law enforcement.
We have a law enforcement number to call.
So we call them and just tell them the information.
We decided that we would call
and see if we can't triangulate that call.
We want this phone pegged because that's all we've got.
He said that what they could do is give you the info
if it's life or death, which it is
because he's contemplating suicide,
and they'd probably ping it off the last tower
to give an approximate location.
Awesome.
Right.
OK.
So you're saying he's at Pearl Harbor.
Yeah, yeah. That's great.
Thank you for all your help, Sergeant Polite,
and if I need anything else, I'll give you a call back.
Yup. Bye-bye.
We got a name, and we were told
that he's on the base in Pearl Harbor.
And so we thought we'd call the Naval base
in Hawaii right away just on a chance.
Hi. My name is Marie.
I'm calling from the Veterans Crisis Center
in Upstate New York.
I need to speak to somebody in dispatch.
We don't know if it's a prank.
When she first gave me the sheet, we thought,
"OK. He's 20, four to five deployments.
It's skeptical," but when I called Verizon
and they told me that it was on a joint base,
so then I'm thinking, "OK. Maybe he's active duty."
We just wait.
So we'll give it a good 20 minutes.
Then we'll call back.
So he started about 11:40 this morning.
It is now 4:10 in the afternoon.
I mean, it's just long and tiring,
but you just can't give up, and you just got to keep on
trying and trying and exhaust all options.
Is that the spelling of his...
Yes.
Veteran's Crisis. Bob Hosk.
Are you calling from Hawaii? OK.
She's on another line. What is your name, sir?
Is he about 20 years old?
Has he been on about four or five tours, do you know?
He has been on multiple deployments.
OK. We're getting closer.
He's been looking down? You've seen that?
OK. There we are.
We need to have somebody check him out, sir.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No problem.
I got him.
What I'd like you to do is,
can you please make sure
you have eyes on?
Would you, please?
That'd be awesome because we've been on this
almost five hours now.
Thank you very much, sir. Bye-bye.
Are you serious?
Shit.
Yeah. There it is.
I was calling in regards to our active duty member
that we were looking for.
To Tripler?
- Yes. - Perfect.
- That's awesome. - All right.
Thank you very much for all your help, sir.
He's safe? Going to Tripler?
All right. Thank you. You have a good day.
- Bam. Done. - Nice.
- Totally done. - Thank you.
- That's it. - Yup.
- Yay. - Perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah, going to Tripler.
Five hours here at the hotline,
and it's about four personnel to help one guy,
which we would do over again... No problem, no problem...
Because this is a good ending to this day, very good ending.
♪
I've been here for two years,
and there's calls that stick with you.
You know, there's calls that you still wonder,
"How are they? Are they OK?"
you know, because they call you at the worst possible moment
in their life and you help them through that,
and you can't help but take some of that with you, you know?
Thank you for calling the Veterans Crisis Line.
This is Maureen. How may I help you?
♪
OK. You take your time.
OK.
So when you say your son is out in the desert with a gun,
where exactly do you mean?
Arizona.
Do you know what kind of gun it is he has?
You think it's a .22? OK.
So he told you that he wrote a suicide note
and it's with him in the truck right now?
Now, was he ever deployed, ma'am?
Twenty-two years is a long time.
He was in the Gulf War? OK.
You think that it was the final divorce papers that he got
from his wife that kind of pushed him over the edge?
OK.
So he's got a lot going on, the divorce,
and he feels like he's a burden on you guys,
the debt, nothing left in life for him?
So the phone call ended with you telling him
you'd see him tomorrow, and he didn't...
OK, but he didn't agree that he'd be seeing you anytime soon?
So there's a couple different options that we can do here.
Do you think if you called him from that other phone
that you were talking to him on and told him that if I called,
I could then put you on the line, as well,
and the three of us could talk,
do you think he'd be open to that?
Yeah. I can hear everything she's saying to him.
She's pleading with him to come home.
She's crying.
She said it would be a Christmas present if he came home.
She just told him she loved him.
She keeps telling him, "Just come on home."
She's telling him to talk to me.
You did really good talking to him.
You know, I could hear everything you said to him.
You did a really good job.
Yup, yup.
I don't know if I would've handled that
as well if it was one of my boys.
You did a really good job.
Now, when he tells you that he's gonna head home,
do you think he's going to do that?
All right.
So, Pat, what I'll do is, I'll call back
in probably a half-hour because we've been talking for a bit,
and I'm really gonna try and talk with him
before, you know, the night is out
because I really need to make sure that he's OK.
All right, Pat. Take care. Bye-bye.
Gonna talk to my supervisor and see what she
would like me to do next, get some guidance on this.
What are your concerns?
That he has a loaded .22,
and he's driving home, you know?
I mean, he told the mother he'd drive home.
He told the mother...
You know, I heard her say, "I love you,"
and I asked her what his response back was,
and he said "I love you, too."
She told him that this would be
the best Christmas present that he could give her
if he came home, and, you know, her voice cracked,
and I asked her what was his response to that,
and she said that he just took a couple deep breaths.
Does she feel he's coming home?
- Yeah. I asked her. - She's pretty confident?
I said, you know, "When he says he's gonna do it,
do you think he'll follow through?"
- Yeah. - And she said, "Yes."
OK.
I think we have to believe that.
- OK. - Yeah.
- Hello? - Hi. Pat?
Hi. It's Maureen.
OK.
Just pulled up? OK.
All right. Good timing. All right.
Well, let's see if we can get him
to talk to me on the phone, OK?
Yup.
When I called,
he had just walked through the front door,
and the mother put me on speakerphone,
and I she must've still been holding the phone
because I heard her hug him...
You know, I could hear, like, the fabric...
And she said, "I love you," and she started crying.
So, you know, just, you know, Christmas Eve,
and, you know, your son was out in a desert.
John?
Hi. My name is Maureen. Can you hear me OK?
Yes. I can.
OK. All right. Thank you for talking with me.
Can I ask you real quick just so I make sure that you're safe,
where's the gun right now?
The gun is in the truck? OK.
Do you think your dad could go out and get it
and just kind of keep it safe for the night?
OK, and you guys have his car keys?
Tell me what you were thinking about
when you were out in the desert,
what was going through your mind, and what you did.
He told me that if his mom
hadn't have called the time that I had asked her to call,
try and convince him to do the three-way call,
that he probably would've done it,
that he had the gun out.
And I heard that you wrote out a suicide note.
He's definitely very desperate
and very, just hopeless right now.
Right, and I think part of getting back on track
with your life is talking to people at the VA,
and making sure that your depression is in check.
You know, depression is really hard to work on on your own.
I will put a referral through for him to the VA,
but, you know, I think if this gentleman doesn't get
some intervention quickly, it's not gonna turn out well.
Well, thank you, John. I appreciate your service.
You know you sacrificed a lot for us,
and we're here to help you in any way we can.
You don't have to do this by yourself.
All right. Bye-bye.
Have a nice holiday.
All right. Bye-bye.
All right.
♪
Thank you for calling the Veterans Crisis Hotline.
This is Maureen. How may I help you?
♪