Suicide Call at Work

Craig1981

Craig1981

Craig1981

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For obvious reasons I wont name names or who I work for, but I had a really distressing call yesterday from a customer.

It started off innocent enough, basically a woman calling to report her card stolen and to get it stopped/replaced. Though she was really REALLY upset from the word go, crying almost hysterically. It turns out her ex-boyfriend had got hold of her card the day before and used it without her permission to withdraw several hundred pounds from her account. And he had gotten hold of it again today. I was about to stop the card when she said that he had literally just thrown it back at her. There was still money in the account, but she was hysterical about the fact she had planned on buying presents for her kids that day and there wasn't enough money left to cover it. She wanted me to recover the money for her. Of course I had to tell her to contact the police since this was a criminal matter. It only went downhill from there. She started telling me about the fact she had a baby last year, but it was stillborn. Plus the two kids she had alive were in the custody of the father and she wasn't going to get to see them over Christmas. Plus stuff about her friends and other family not supporting her. Then she started talking about wanting to kill herself to get away from all the pain and misery, about driving her car into a tree/wall. At this point I had to flag over a manager to listen into the call. He went to inform the police, all the while the customer was actually giving me messages to pass on to her mother and sister to explain why she had chosen to kill herself. The call ended up going on for over half an hour. I said what little I could, trying to talk her out of doing anything silly, asking her to think about how her kids would be affected. Honestly I spent a lot of the time in silence just letting her talk. She kept apologising to me, saying she didn't want it to ruin my Christmas thinking about her. Eventually she wore herself out and ended the call. My manager had passed on all her details to the police. Apparantly she's known to them, having a lot of emotional issues. They said they would send someone round to her house immediately to stop her doing anything unfortunate.

Afterwards my manager and operations manger both came to talk to me right away, as they had both been listening into the call. They said I had done really well dealing with the call and had said/done the right things, especially since I obviously have no training in dealing with calls of that type. They gave me some time off the phone to go outside and get some fresh air, cause honestly I was feeling pretty shaken up after the call was over.

I thought I had put it behind me, but I kept thinking about her today. I'll probably never be able to find out what happened to her. I just hope she didn't do it. She really sounded like she genuinely wanted to kill herself. She was absolutely serious and convinced it was the only way to make her problems go away.

Anyway.... sorry. I know this is a bit of a weird thing to be posting on Christmas Day, when everyone is celebrating and enjoying themselves. I just hope nobody here ever has problems that are so terrible they ever contemplate doing something terrible to themselves.

Anyway. Enough rambling. Love you guys! *group hug*
 
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Speak to your manager they might have enough access to check her Facebook.

Horrible situation. You don't stop thinking about it until you have proof from my experience :(.

Well done!
 
If it's any consolation, in my experience the people that really go ahead with this sort of thing are the ones who don't shout about it.

Just know that you had the best procedures in place and if she needed any kind of care then she probably received it. Nothing you could have done.

Fact is there's a lot of damaged and hurt people on our doorsteps struggling with life who feel just as crazy sometimes, myself included.

Today is a day for thinking of others and being thankful for what we have, so feel good you didn't just think "oh what another silly bint" and actually caring. That's all that matters. Have a good one :)
 
Dup said:
If it's any consolation, in my experience the people that really go ahead with this sort of thing are the ones who don't shout about it.
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This^

When i was at a very low point in my life 'a cry out for help' was all that was needed. You can feel very lost and lonely at times.

Sounds like you did an admiral job in a very hard situation - you should feel proud of yourself :)
 
Good work OP, sounds like you did a great job in the circumstances. It's very unlikely she'll have had time to successfully suicided with intervention on its way.

Give yourself a pat on the back. And Merry Xmas :)
 
Not your problem end of the day and you did all you could. Someone jumped off the bridge right in front of me, I tried to talk to him but between him going over the rail and jumping there was probably less than 10 seconds. He made his decision and I didn't know him, I tried to help but he already made his mind up so honestly I was surprised how little I felt about the whole thing.
 
bad time to be taking calls from random strangers.

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Rimmer: I used to be in the Samaritans.
Lister: I know. For one morning.
Rimmer: I couldn't take any more.
Lister: I don't blame you. You spoke to five people and they all committed suicide. I wouldn't mind, but one was a wrong number! He only phoned up for the cricket scores!
Rimmer: Well, it's not my fault everyone chose that day to jump out of buildings! It made the papers, you know. "Lemming Sunday," they called it.
Click to expand...
 
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You did well OP. It's out of your hands now, you did what you could, now try and forget it and enjoy your Christmas.
 
shauncr91 said:
Glad I'm not the only one, I've had to listen to too many scumbags throw me similar stories wwhich have turned out to be false to wipe off a debt I struggle to take any seriously these days.
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Sadly not a chance worth taking. Could be someone's life on the line.
 
shauncr91 said:
Glad I'm not the only one, I've had to listen to too many scumbags throw me similar stories wwhich have turned out to be false to wipe off a debt I struggle to take any seriously these days.
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If it was a fake call, then she deserves an academy award for acting. It didn't sound like a fake call to me, and the police did confirm she was known to them for having emotional problems. But end of the day, I can't prove it one way or the other.
 
Diddums said:
Sadly not a chance worth taking. Could be someone's life on the line.
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I definitely agree but unfortunately for every serious case there are seemingly hundreds of fake ones. I'm not saying we dismiss them but they aren't worth worrying yourself silly over.
 
Dup said:
If it's any consolation, in my experience the people that really go ahead with this sort of thing are the ones who don't shout about .
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Absolutely this (often with absolutely no sign of any previous history), but that said such a cry should not be ignored either.

Good job OP.
 
Gigabit said:
Surely it's better to wipe the debt off (and be wrong) than potentially let somebody kill themselves...
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1. It was Christmas Eve, so most departments were closed. There would be no way the money would be back in the account until at least Tuesday.

2. Its not that simple. She was essentially reporting a crime. It would be irresponsible not to involve the police. THEY would investigate to get the cash back.
 
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