By Kirsty Topping
Police forces in England helped track down the woman
A SUICIDAL woman had her life saved after a post on the social networking site was noticed by a Scot.
Glasgow civil servant Jamie McIntyre raised the alarm after spotting her tweet, saying she was taking
“the coward’s way out’, and raising the alarm.
The 32-year-old then used his iPhone to access location information on the woman’s profile and guide rescuers to her house, hundreds of miles away, where she was found and taken to hospital.
Jamie said:
“When I saw the tweet it made me worry, so I sent a message to the person to ask if they were ok and got no response.
“I retweeted the message asking if anyone who followed me who knew the person could get in touch with them, but unfortunately no one did.
“I decided there was nothing to be done but call the police. “
Jamie had only had his iPhone for a week and had only joined Twitter two months previously so initially worried the tweet was a joke.
“Because I didn’t know the person part of me worried that it could be a prank I wasn’t in on and I was acting like a busybody,’ he continued.
“But I’d rather be a busybody that doesn’t get the joke than risk someone harming themselves.
The woman was thought to be in the Thames Valley area and Jamie was put in touch with local police. A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said:
“Following the call, investigations were carried out and it came to light after speaking to family members of the person who made the tweet that they weren’t in the Thames Valley are at the time, but were believed to be in Crewe. Thames Valley then liaised with Crewe, who carried out an area search. “
The woman was later taken to hospital and is believed to be recovering.
Jamie continued:
“I’m just glad it was a message left on Twitter and not a note left on a desk.
“It was a message that went out to a lot of people and luckily I was one of them and was able to get the police involved. “
Dr Arthur Cassidy, a social psychologist at the Belfast Institute, said such incidents were becoming more common due to our close relationship with the internet.
He said:
“Because of the sophistication of social networking now it has very much become part of our thinking in terms of communication.
“We have become socialized into a cyberworld that is part of our personal identity.
“A lot of people feel it’s the
“cool’ thing to do, to share things on Facebook or Twitter.
“They take pride in the fact that
“I’m telling everybody about this.” And that can even extend to
“I’m going to take my own life.” “
