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U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

259 points by fortran77 4y ago

prvit 4y ago
piker 4y ago
Don't understand this idea. In UK there's a dozen or so magic numbers with one for each special crisis that you're supposed to memorize. Some are straightforward: 111 (non emergency health), 999 (emergency), but then there's 101, 112, 105? and you're supposed to dial them in certain circumstances. It seems this takes some triage load off, but it also seems like the path from "what's your emergency?" "this is not an emergency" to switching the line should be straightforward in 2022. Doing that would enable citizens to have a single point of contact for any kind of interaction with the state from crisis to reporting a power outage to paying a parking ticket.
- mortenjorck 4y ago
  The one aspect that stands out to me is that it offloads liability for bad triage to the caller.
- DigiDigiorno 4y ago
  Please press 1 if you are a danger to yourself or others, Please press 2...
  - decremental 4y ago
    Press one for english. Presione dos para español.
    - DigiDigiorno 4y ago
      There probably is a IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menu for emergency services somewhere, but it seems a bit too surreal for me.
- hericium 4y ago
  Have you seen "0118 999 881 999 119 725 3"[1] in IT Crowd? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
  - Sakos 4y ago
    I have it memorized for emergencies.
- peterlk 4y ago
  I thought you all just had one number for everything! 0118 999 881 999 119 7253 https://youtu.be/ab8GtuPdrUQ https://youtu.be/ab8GtuPdrUQ
  - anticensor 4y ago
    Missing country code, you are instead supposed to call: +44 118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  (1) it reduces non-emergency load on emergency dispatch (or, if you don't route immediately to emergency dispatch, delay in emergencies reaching emergency dispatch.) (2) Emergency dispatch may automatically dispatch police/fire/EMS. That may be counterproductive to (and discourage calls for) some other events that a ready access number is desired for.
  - piker 4y ago
    (1) "is this an emergency?" yes/no must be close to O(1) (2) is this done in practice or just hypothetical?
    - seoaeu 4y ago
      That would add overhead to every call. The first question that they ask is: “911. Where is the emergency?”
      - mindcrime 4y ago
        The first question that they ask is: “911. Where is the emergency?” That varies from PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) to PSAP. Local policy dictates what the first thing said to the caller is. And while I believe it is the case that most PSAP's use "where is your emergency" as their first question these days, some still use "what is your emergency" instead. This is one of those things that people who work in public safety (especially dispatchers) love to have religious arguments about. And just to go back to the point about emergency / non-emergency calls: people call 911 for all sorts of shit that isn't an emergency. And while I've been gone from dispatching for a while, from what I understand, this problem has only gotten worse over the years. Unfortunately 911 has gone from "the number I call if somebody is dying or something is on fire" to "the number I call if there is anything going on that I don't understand or don't like, and want to demand that Somebody Needs To Do Something About It." :-( Source: former 911 dispatcher and firefighter, and have called 911 a handful of times over the years.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  You can already call either 911 or the ten digit suicide hotline humber about suicide. 988 is just shorthand for the full suicide hotline number. You won’t get in trouble if you call 911 about suicide, but if they think it’s not urgent they may point you to other resources rather than dispatch emergency services. The suicide hotline provides non-emergency resources but can’t emergency dispatch. Perhaps in the future, more 911 centers will be expanded to include non-emergency suicide resources, but most or all don’t have that right now.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  112 exists because it's the emergency number in some other countries. So it's smart to have it in the UK as well so foreigners can still call for help even not knowing the local convention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_numbe...
  - Taniwha 4y ago
    111 is also the emergency number in some countries - here in NZ some time back in the '30s some post office functionary bought a while bunch of dial phones on the cheap - because they had the numbers on the dial the other way around from what was becoming the standard elsewhere - hence 111 as the emergency number - worked great for 40-50 years until international direct dial became a thing .... these days we accept 111 911 999 112 as synonyms
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > that you're supposed to memorize If the situation you are in means that you don’t have time, ability, means, or mental capacity to Google for the right number then the right number to use is 999. It’s a self-solving problem.
- orwin 4y ago
  112 is the european emergency number. If you have an issue while on vacation, only remember this. The Brussel effect made it international, and now i think most touristic destination use this number. Also, with a European operator, calling 112 will redirect you to local emergency numbers (let's say 911 if you are currently in the US).
DigiDigiorno 4y ago
I'm not sure how these lines work. I wonder how they balance public safety against the disincentive of involuntary commitment and the stigmas attached to it. I imagine if you feel there is a risk you will have your rights taken away (including the ability to end your life), you are less likely to seek help.
- tadfisher 4y ago
  Sure, but you have to weigh this option with the alternative, which is no option. Is it worth $0.5 billion to add a convenient number? Debatable. Will some people use it, and in turn prevent death and injury? Absolutely.
- fassssst 4y ago
  More info here: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/15/1111316589/988-suicide-hotline-number https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/15/1111316...
- charcircuit 4y ago
  >I imagine if you feel there is a risk you will have your rights taken away If this is possible imagine if people "swatted" you with this to get you locked up somewhere.
  - DigiDigiorno 4y ago
    I would guess it is not only possible, but one of the intentions behind it. A percent breakdown of calls to involuntary commitments would be useful. I found something about a Florida Department of Family & Children suicide line having a 19% rate of involuntary commitment after a follow-up. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article263511318.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article26351131...) It is scary to think about, but I think both swatting and this would be solved by authorities looking at the scene without blindly taking irreversible action. (In Florida, once the Baker Act involuntary commitment begins, it is required to continue for a couple days. Police examine the suspect before formally doing it, because it is a pretty big deal.) That is not to say I agree (or disagree) with these calls being used for involuntary commitment, I just think the swatting problem is the symptom of an unrelated issue.
bjt2n3904 4y ago
Numbers that I'll never dial if I'm in a sort of crisis.
- prvit 4y ago
  Why does this get downvoted? There are many similar numbers operated by orgs that won’t call the cops on you.
  - newaccount2021 4y ago
    in addition to the red-flagging that will follow you around perhaps for the rest of your life
    - yomkippur 4y ago
    - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
      That red-flagging was a whole mini-scandal in Canada. Turns out when you travel to the US, there is data sharing between customs and border patrol so if you've ever called/been involved with the police, that info is shared. So whoopsie, what should be considered private health information was shared with officials in another country without asking for consent first.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Presumably it's for those around you to dial when you're in crisis.
- yomkippur 4y ago
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
This is a classic regulatory capture. Now that there is a standard number that has to be serviced there will be more demand for the companies providing these services. They in turn get more volume of data to sell off to the brokers.
- belltaco 4y ago
  That's not what regulatory capture is, much less classic.
- dekobon 4y ago
  Data from these numbers is protected by HIPAA and callers can voluntarily be anonymous.
  - prvit 4y ago
    Callers need to exercise a fairly high level OPSEC to maintain anonymity. If you aren’t using some VOIP service, there’s a good chance your call will be traced and the cops will be at your door anyway.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Don't be so sure about that: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/02/24/suicide-hotline-left-ethics-board-out-of-the-loop-about-data-sharing-with-for-profit-spinoff/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/02/24/suic... You can't anonymize your phone number which is all a data broker needs to connect to your identity.
Waterluvian 4y ago
Policing is in such a horrible state in America that an emergency number that excludes police involvement seems increasingly necessary. I wonder if you can get paramedics through this route or if it just rings and you eventually get a counsellor.
- prvit 4y ago
  There are thousands of stories of people calling this number and having a SWAT team show up at their home. E: hard to even imagine what kind of an utterly horrible person would downvote this
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    In case anyone was wondering, most SWAT teams do 8-16 callouts a year. Major metropolitan teams might see 50ish on a busy year. The vast majority of these are hostage situations, but bomb situations and active shooters land in there too. https://www.ksl.com/article/46295693/when-swat-teams-are-used-why-and-how-much-it-costs https://www.ksl.com/article/46295693/when-swat-teams-are-use...
    - prvit 4y ago
      https://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-teams https://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-team... This 2015 article claims 80k deployments per year And I guess it makes little difference whether it’s the SWAT team that shoots you or just regular cops.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        Your articles source for that 80k figure is literally a guess by a criminologist who gives the range "50k to 80k" based on literally no data. The only data they are using is PG county MD which has one of the highest murder rates in the country. In 2021 there were ~1,000 police shootings. 85% of shot suspects were armed with a deadly weapon. That's in a nation with a population of 334,000,000 people.
kvetching 4y ago
It's the number to get thousands in medical bills.
- prvit 4y ago
  Why does this get downvoted? Involuntary commitment is not free in the US.
  - kupopuffs 4y ago
    does a phone call here really lead to involuntary commitment?
    - prvit 4y ago
      Not necessarily, but it’s not particularly unlikely. Depends entirely on how lucky you get with the operator.
yomkippur 4y ago
newaccount2021 4y ago
kelseyfrog 4y ago
What constitutes a 988 emergency? I was raised with a sacrosanct view of 911. Do not call unless it is a bona fide emergency. This means something along the lines of a situation outside my expertise that poses a threat to life. Broadly speaking it ranges from medical, physical, security, and probably a host of other things I'm forgetting. However, I don't have the same instilled ideas about 988. What are the sufficient conditions to place a call, for oneself and for others?
- pbourke 4y ago
  It gets even more complicated when some areas have emergency and non-emergency converged to 911 like my county in WA does.
  - JshWright 4y ago
    Even in areas where they still exist as separate numbers, they are pretty much always handled by the same calltakers.
    - adrianmonk 4y ago
      I wonder if emergency calls jump past non-emergency calls in the queue. If so, that seems like a reasonable setup, and it would be better to call the correct number if possible. I suppose they could even allow an incoming emergency call to interrupt a non-emergency conversation (which would be put on hold) so that emergency calls never have to wait for a non-emergency conversation to finish.
      - treis 4y ago
        >that emergency calls never have to wait 911 calls in my major metro relatively frequently ring unanswered
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Your view of 911 is incorrect. You should attend a safety briefing from your responders (or if in a smaller region, call their office number). To loosely rephrase: "911 is if you need assistance now. Non-emergency is for the paperwork the next day."
fuckcensorship 4y ago
Suicide hotlines, on the surface, seem like a good thing. Having a phone number someone can call 24/7 to talk to someone who is trained in helping someone undergoing a mental health crisis seems like an effective way to reduce suicides and benefit mental health overall. However, I think they have the opposite effect in practice. I suffer from pretty severe depression. It runs in my family and it is something I've struggled with for a number of years. During depressive episodes, I have no interest in connecting with other people. This includes friends, therapists, family, etc. So the idea that I would ever pick up the phone and call a suicide hotline to talk to someone on the phone about my depression is borderline laughable. I also think suicide hotlines have become a convenient and easy way for people to ignore and dismiss sufferers of depression in online discourse while virtue signaling that they care. Rather than offering advice, help, solace, or anything remotely human, it has become commonplace for social media users to simply paste the suicide hotline number and walk away pretending to have helped the situation when in reality they have only helped themselves.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  A lot of suicide attempts describe wanting to be talked out of their attempt. They want someone to help stop them. I've been on the receiving end of a call from someone who wanted to be talked down. I think having a universal number to call if you don't have anyone else is valuable. Will it stop all suicides? No. Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes. Is this a made-up statistic? Do we have any good studies that show that a suicide hotline that could loop in emergency services, possibly get you involuntarily committed, and possibly be something that employers and insurers could find out the for the rest of your life reduces mortality, or is that just the kind "common sense" that's so obvious that we don't have to do science?
cj 4y ago
Interesting side effect of this: In my local phone number area code, it's no longer possible to dial local numbers without the area code. That means all outgoing calls require an area code, whereas normally you can dial local numbers without an area code. In addition, we must also dial "1" before the area code when placing outgoing calls to certain neighboring area codes. It's unclear exactly why - I imagine it has to do with some numbers conflicting with the "988" number in some way.
- khuey 4y ago
  Area codes that were not already using ten digit dialing and where the central office code 988 was already in use (i.e. there exist phone numbers in the area code of the form 988-NNNN) were required to switch to ten digit dialing for this (or renumber the 988-NNNN numbers, which is what area code 701 in North Dakota did).
- Taniwha 4y ago
  there's more to it than that - lots of phone/phone systems have built algorithms tell them how long a phone number is, and place a call once you've hit that length - for example "911" has a length - one thing that's been happening behind the scenes (mandated by the FCC) is that all the phones in the US have been quietly getting software upgrades to make "988" terminate at 3 digits .... this effectively means you can't dial local numbers that start with 988 .... there are no 7-digit numbers that start with 911 but some that start with 988 - there are no area codes that start with either. It's all a tremendous ongoing hack .... Interestingly it used to be that all area codes (and emergency numbers) had a 1 or a 0 as the second digit and no local exchange numbers did - that's why you didn't have to type that initial 1 (which is also the NA international dialing code) - exchanges could easily detect an out of area code call (and figure out the 7/10 digit thing). Then faxes and modems came along the number of required phone numbers in the US effectively doubled and they ran out
bigbillheck 4y ago
"988" is a perfectly valid 7 digit prefix. Turns out they're dealing with that fact by making 10 digit dialing mandatory in area codes that have it.
- JohnTHaller 4y ago
  Requiring 10 digit dialing was implemented in the affected areas 9 months ago. As an aside, I haven't dialed a 7 digit number in about 20 years. Then again, I live in NYC with 7 different area codes.
- Sirened 4y ago
  Area-codeless dialing has been dead in many places for ages. My city has had multiple area codes since at least 2000 and so everyone has been providing area codes for well over two decades now. Especially too now that we have people keeping the same phone number for decades (hell, for life even) regardless of where they eventually move, trying to support this feature is a losing cause since many people would be forced to figure out the unstated area code in order to dial.
adamredwoods 4y ago
Finally. This is excellent. Offloading mental health issues from the police is critical to reforming our country. For some of the doubters on this initiative, NPR had a good discussion: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/16/1111868486/calling-988-in-the-u-s-will-now-get-you-help-for-a-mental-health-crisis https://www.npr.org/2022/07/16/1111868486/calling-988-in-the...
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Hope to see much more of this unbundling in the future.
- throwaway988 4y ago
  It's not reasonable to expect police officers to excel at everything. Maybe this is better. That said, I recently had the opportunity to watch (at length) a team of officers deal with someone experiencing a severe crisis. I can hardly believe the level of professionalism and kindness they exhibited. I'm anon, so I'll admit it--I cried and cried after watching that.
TexanFeller 4y ago
I’ve heard people advise not to call such hotlines because their intervention is not limited to just talking to you. It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was.
- takenpilot 4y ago
  This is true, actually. A good friend of mine disappeared for a while because of this. The story he told me about the experience afterward was wild.
- tyingq 4y ago
  Some of that is on the FAQ page: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs Will 988 calls be referred to 911? Currently, a small percentage of Lifeline calls require activation of the 911 system when there is imminent risk to someone’s life that cannot be reduced during the Lifeline call. In these cases, the crisis counselor shares information with 911 that is crucial to saving the caller’s life. So it does sound like that can happen. Though I don't know what else they could reasonably do if it sounds like the caller is imminently going to do serious self-harm.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    This is likewise true of any human interaction. It’s not like they’re going to promise to never refer a situation to emergency services.
- myself248 4y ago
  Yup. A friend related a similar story to me. Having some counselors stop by or something, might be cool, but the police are basically the opposite of that, at least today, at least in most places. I can't imagine a worse sequence of events to kick off.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    You don’t hear about the police interventions that go well.
optimalsolver 4y ago
Just in time for the crypto crash. I kid. I kid.
- bone_frequency 4y ago
  Would be funny if it was only crypto and not the whole global economy.
kyledrake 4y ago
The other really important thing here would be requiring healthcare to cover therapy. I have many friends that need therapy for trauma/cPTSD issues that cannot afford it and thus don't seek help. It will more than pay for itself in prevention before mental health issues become worse and then require crisis intervention. It could substantially improve the overall health of America in a lot of ways.
WebbWeaver 4y ago
Maybe we should rebrand it as a mental health hotline and directory. Most people dont know what resources for this actually exist and what they do. Mental health remediation does not have a good track record everywhere.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Honestly a big part of the problem is resources don’t exist in a timely manner. I’m currently waiting for a neuropsych followup for a minor concussion which had to be scheduled six months out. I’ve had a friend in the middle of a manic episode unable to get care with their existing provider for weeks. The state of mental health service availability is ridiculous.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwaway988 4y ago
For those who might ever contemplate this, maybe you'd like to hear a bit from me. I've been both depressed life-long and have probably spent more time in such contemplation than virtually anyone else here. (I'm pretty happy now, so no need to worry.) One of the worst things about this is the feeling that you can't talk to anyone about it, as the moment you do, you start having to take care of _them_ emotionally, at a time when you just can't. If you can afford it, a good therapist is an option--you pay them so you don't have to take care of them. How to find one? I don't know. Try several. Here's some first aid. First, no one gets out of life alive. Usually, there's no need to hurry your demise, as you'll be dead soon enough. And as many have observed, subjective time accelerates. If you're 35, your life is more than half done anyway. Second, before you take steps, try to remember a few things you always wanted to do. Do them first. I've always been partial to waterfalls. Mountains are great. Music festivals can be pretty cool. Go eat your favorite foods a few more times. Third, if everything seems bleak, get wasted. Probably things will seem less urgent in the morning. Longer term, try to find something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. That's the trifecta, but even one goes a long way. Worked for me. Will your problems pass? Probably, but maybe not. The pain, though, will lessen. What if you're dealing with someone else suicidal? Just listen and keep listening, without making yourself an emotional burden. If you can, do what a friend would do. There might come a moment, appropriate to the relationship, where you can let the person know that you'd be devastated if they killed themselves. (I think it's okay to exaggerate a bit on this point.) Godspeed. (I don't comment on HN, and likely HN prefers it that way. But this seems like an unusually important topic.)
- vasco 4y ago
  > What if you're dealing with someone else suicidal? Just listen and keep listening, without making yourself an emotional burden. Careful with this, it's easy as a partner of someone suffering from this to over time get too impacted by the constant depression talk and walking on egg shells to not say the wrong thing. My recommendation is to help your friend or partner get professional help, if after a couple of months of listening you're still just listening to same stuff. Otherwise it'll take a toll on you and two depressed people are worse than one.
questiondev 4y ago
it would be nice if they had this for people with substance abuse disorders who have nobody and want to get clean
kromem 4y ago
I wonder at how proving a legal path to ending life for anyone (with a lengthy waiting period and multiple psych sessions) would reduce the instances of impromptu suicide. My suspicion is that the availability of a legitimized path to the same result, but with a far less traumatizing method for both the individual and their loved ones, might allow for transitioning people into getting help when that's not the outcome they really want and provide a respectful and humane exit for those that clinically and chronically find living unbearable. I'm not sure that the most ethical approach to life is forcing people to continue with it against their will, it is clearly not working, and by pushing the pursuit of death underground we're likely missing tens of thousands of people each year who would turn away from that downward spiral through treatment. The people I knew that eventually committed suicide due to chronic depression spent many years thinking about it - a year waiting list for a state authorized humane option I'm sure would have been fine with any of them. But the ones that committed suicide in response to temporary circumstances didn't have any outlet other than admitting the intent to commit a crime and facing the social and economic consequences of that being outed. Even the number of stories I've heard from survivors about the regret as soon as it was too late to take back is harrowing. I'd have to wonder how many push the button for the nitrogen chamber (the likely method for state authorized suicide) only to regret it in the last moment where someone could successfully abort the procedure to save them. The low level of repeat attempts would be promising for the availability of "suicide with emergency break" alone. The religious puritanism surrounding suicide has doomed us to adopt policies and attitudes towards it as a society that probably do more harm than good.
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  No, if someone has lost their motivation to live, that is the fault of the community around them, and it’s the responsibility of society to fix the failures that led to that loss of motivation. The path to fixing these failures is not to offer state-sponsored (or at least state-sanctioned, as your comment implies) lethal injection for anyone who asks for it. That’s sweeping the problems under the rug. I’m not religious in any way, but the ideas you suggest in your comment make me deeply uncomfortable, because they strike me as the ultimate betrayal of the miracle of random chance that led to our existence, with an almost lackadaisical disregard for human suffering, to the point of systemizing the process of ignoring it.
dna_polymerase 4y ago
> follows a three-year joint effort by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to put crisis care more in reach for people in need. This initiative is part of President Biden’s comprehensive strategy to address our nation’s mental health crisis Three years ago Trump was in office. Why does everything in U.S. politics has to be so stupid?
malwarebytess 4y ago
Have there been many thorough studies of the efficacy of these hotlines?

259 points by fortran77 4y ago

Don't understand this idea. In UK there's a dozen or so magic numbers with one for each special crisis that you're supposed to memorize. Some are straightforward: 111 (non emergency health), 999 (emergency), but then there's 101, 112, 105? and you're supposed to dial them in certain circumstances. It seems this takes some triage load off, but it also seems like the path from "what's your emergency?" "this is not an emergency" to switching the line should be straightforward in 2022. Doing that would enable citizens to have a single point of contact for any kind of interaction with the state from crisis to reporting a power outage to paying a parking ticket.

mortenjorck 4y ago
The one aspect that stands out to me is that it offloads liability for bad triage to the caller.
DigiDigiorno 4y ago
Please press 1 if you are a danger to yourself or others, Please press 2...
- decremental 4y ago
  Press one for english. Presione dos para español.
  - DigiDigiorno 4y ago
    There probably is a IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menu for emergency services somewhere, but it seems a bit too surreal for me.
hericium 4y ago
Have you seen "0118 999 881 999 119 725 3"[1] in IT Crowd? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
- Sakos 4y ago
  I have it memorized for emergencies.
peterlk 4y ago
I thought you all just had one number for everything! 0118 999 881 999 119 7253 https://youtu.be/ab8GtuPdrUQ https://youtu.be/ab8GtuPdrUQ
- anticensor 4y ago
  Missing country code, you are instead supposed to call: +44 118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
dragonwriter 4y ago
(1) it reduces non-emergency load on emergency dispatch (or, if you don't route immediately to emergency dispatch, delay in emergencies reaching emergency dispatch.) (2) Emergency dispatch may automatically dispatch police/fire/EMS. That may be counterproductive to (and discourage calls for) some other events that a ready access number is desired for.
- piker 4y ago
  (1) "is this an emergency?" yes/no must be close to O(1) (2) is this done in practice or just hypothetical?
  - seoaeu 4y ago
    That would add overhead to every call. The first question that they ask is: “911. Where is the emergency?”
    - mindcrime 4y ago
      The first question that they ask is: “911. Where is the emergency?” That varies from PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) to PSAP. Local policy dictates what the first thing said to the caller is. And while I believe it is the case that most PSAP's use "where is your emergency" as their first question these days, some still use "what is your emergency" instead. This is one of those things that people who work in public safety (especially dispatchers) love to have religious arguments about. And just to go back to the point about emergency / non-emergency calls: people call 911 for all sorts of shit that isn't an emergency. And while I've been gone from dispatching for a while, from what I understand, this problem has only gotten worse over the years. Unfortunately 911 has gone from "the number I call if somebody is dying or something is on fire" to "the number I call if there is anything going on that I don't understand or don't like, and want to demand that Somebody Needs To Do Something About It." :-( Source: former 911 dispatcher and firefighter, and have called 911 a handful of times over the years.
1123581321 4y ago
You can already call either 911 or the ten digit suicide hotline humber about suicide. 988 is just shorthand for the full suicide hotline number. You won’t get in trouble if you call 911 about suicide, but if they think it’s not urgent they may point you to other resources rather than dispatch emergency services. The suicide hotline provides non-emergency resources but can’t emergency dispatch. Perhaps in the future, more 911 centers will be expanded to include non-emergency suicide resources, but most or all don’t have that right now.
hypertele-Xii 4y ago
112 exists because it's the emergency number in some other countries. So it's smart to have it in the UK as well so foreigners can still call for help even not knowing the local convention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_numbe...
- Taniwha 4y ago
  111 is also the emergency number in some countries - here in NZ some time back in the '30s some post office functionary bought a while bunch of dial phones on the cheap - because they had the numbers on the dial the other way around from what was becoming the standard elsewhere - hence 111 as the emergency number - worked great for 40-50 years until international direct dial became a thing .... these days we accept 111 911 999 112 as synonyms
chrisseaton 4y ago
> that you're supposed to memorize If the situation you are in means that you don’t have time, ability, means, or mental capacity to Google for the right number then the right number to use is 999. It’s a self-solving problem.
orwin 4y ago
112 is the european emergency number. If you have an issue while on vacation, only remember this. The Brussel effect made it international, and now i think most touristic destination use this number. Also, with a European operator, calling 112 will redirect you to local emergency numbers (let's say 911 if you are currently in the US).

DigiDigiorno 4y ago

I'm not sure how these lines work. I wonder how they balance public safety against the disincentive of involuntary commitment and the stigmas attached to it. I imagine if you feel there is a risk you will have your rights taken away (including the ability to end your life), you are less likely to seek help.

tadfisher 4y ago
Sure, but you have to weigh this option with the alternative, which is no option. Is it worth $0.5 billion to add a convenient number? Debatable. Will some people use it, and in turn prevent death and injury? Absolutely.
fassssst 4y ago
More info here: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/15/1111316589/988-suicide-hotline-number https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/15/1111316...
charcircuit 4y ago
>I imagine if you feel there is a risk you will have your rights taken away If this is possible imagine if people "swatted" you with this to get you locked up somewhere.
- DigiDigiorno 4y ago
  I would guess it is not only possible, but one of the intentions behind it. A percent breakdown of calls to involuntary commitments would be useful. I found something about a Florida Department of Family & Children suicide line having a 19% rate of involuntary commitment after a follow-up. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article263511318.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article26351131...) It is scary to think about, but I think both swatting and this would be solved by authorities looking at the scene without blindly taking irreversible action. (In Florida, once the Baker Act involuntary commitment begins, it is required to continue for a couple days. Police examine the suspect before formally doing it, because it is a pretty big deal.) That is not to say I agree (or disagree) with these calls being used for involuntary commitment, I just think the swatting problem is the symptom of an unrelated issue.

bjt2n3904 4y ago

Numbers that I'll never dial if I'm in a sort of crisis.

prvit 4y ago
Why does this get downvoted? There are many similar numbers operated by orgs that won’t call the cops on you.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
  in addition to the red-flagging that will follow you around perhaps for the rest of your life
  - yomkippur 4y ago
  - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    That red-flagging was a whole mini-scandal in Canada. Turns out when you travel to the US, there is data sharing between customs and border patrol so if you've ever called/been involved with the police, that info is shared. So whoopsie, what should be considered private health information was shared with officials in another country without asking for consent first.
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Presumably it's for those around you to dial when you're in crisis.
yomkippur 4y ago

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

This is a classic regulatory capture. Now that there is a standard number that has to be serviced there will be more demand for the companies providing these services. They in turn get more volume of data to sell off to the brokers.

belltaco 4y ago
That's not what regulatory capture is, much less classic.
dekobon 4y ago
Data from these numbers is protected by HIPAA and callers can voluntarily be anonymous.
- prvit 4y ago
  Callers need to exercise a fairly high level OPSEC to maintain anonymity. If you aren’t using some VOIP service, there’s a good chance your call will be traced and the cops will be at your door anyway.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Don't be so sure about that: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/02/24/suicide-hotline-left-ethics-board-out-of-the-loop-about-data-sharing-with-for-profit-spinoff/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/02/24/suic... You can't anonymize your phone number which is all a data broker needs to connect to your identity.

Waterluvian 4y ago

Policing is in such a horrible state in America that an emergency number that excludes police involvement seems increasingly necessary. I wonder if you can get paramedics through this route or if it just rings and you eventually get a counsellor.

prvit 4y ago
There are thousands of stories of people calling this number and having a SWAT team show up at their home. E: hard to even imagine what kind of an utterly horrible person would downvote this
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  In case anyone was wondering, most SWAT teams do 8-16 callouts a year. Major metropolitan teams might see 50ish on a busy year. The vast majority of these are hostage situations, but bomb situations and active shooters land in there too. https://www.ksl.com/article/46295693/when-swat-teams-are-used-why-and-how-much-it-costs https://www.ksl.com/article/46295693/when-swat-teams-are-use...
  - prvit 4y ago
    https://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-teams https://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-team... This 2015 article claims 80k deployments per year And I guess it makes little difference whether it’s the SWAT team that shoots you or just regular cops.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Your articles source for that 80k figure is literally a guess by a criminologist who gives the range "50k to 80k" based on literally no data. The only data they are using is PG county MD which has one of the highest murder rates in the country. In 2021 there were ~1,000 police shootings. 85% of shot suspects were armed with a deadly weapon. That's in a nation with a population of 334,000,000 people.

kvetching 4y ago

It's the number to get thousands in medical bills.

prvit 4y ago
Why does this get downvoted? Involuntary commitment is not free in the US.
- kupopuffs 4y ago
  does a phone call here really lead to involuntary commitment?
  - prvit 4y ago
    Not necessarily, but it’s not particularly unlikely. Depends entirely on how lucky you get with the operator.

yomkippur 4y ago

newaccount2021 4y ago

kelseyfrog 4y ago

What constitutes a 988 emergency? I was raised with a sacrosanct view of 911. Do not call unless it is a bona fide emergency. This means something along the lines of a situation outside my expertise that poses a threat to life. Broadly speaking it ranges from medical, physical, security, and probably a host of other things I'm forgetting. However, I don't have the same instilled ideas about 988. What are the sufficient conditions to place a call, for oneself and for others?

pbourke 4y ago
It gets even more complicated when some areas have emergency and non-emergency converged to 911 like my county in WA does.
- JshWright 4y ago
  Even in areas where they still exist as separate numbers, they are pretty much always handled by the same calltakers.
  - adrianmonk 4y ago
    I wonder if emergency calls jump past non-emergency calls in the queue. If so, that seems like a reasonable setup, and it would be better to call the correct number if possible. I suppose they could even allow an incoming emergency call to interrupt a non-emergency conversation (which would be put on hold) so that emergency calls never have to wait for a non-emergency conversation to finish.
    - treis 4y ago
      >that emergency calls never have to wait 911 calls in my major metro relatively frequently ring unanswered
vorpalhex 4y ago
Your view of 911 is incorrect. You should attend a safety briefing from your responders (or if in a smaller region, call their office number). To loosely rephrase: "911 is if you need assistance now. Non-emergency is for the paperwork the next day."

fuckcensorship 4y ago

Suicide hotlines, on the surface, seem like a good thing. Having a phone number someone can call 24/7 to talk to someone who is trained in helping someone undergoing a mental health crisis seems like an effective way to reduce suicides and benefit mental health overall. However, I think they have the opposite effect in practice. I suffer from pretty severe depression. It runs in my family and it is something I've struggled with for a number of years. During depressive episodes, I have no interest in connecting with other people. This includes friends, therapists, family, etc. So the idea that I would ever pick up the phone and call a suicide hotline to talk to someone on the phone about my depression is borderline laughable. I also think suicide hotlines have become a convenient and easy way for people to ignore and dismiss sufferers of depression in online discourse while virtue signaling that they care. Rather than offering advice, help, solace, or anything remotely human, it has become commonplace for social media users to simply paste the suicide hotline number and walk away pretending to have helped the situation when in reality they have only helped themselves.

vorpalhex 4y ago
A lot of suicide attempts describe wanting to be talked out of their attempt. They want someone to help stop them. I've been on the receiving end of a call from someone who wanted to be talked down. I think having a universal number to call if you don't have anyone else is valuable. Will it stop all suicides? No. Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes. Is this a made-up statistic? Do we have any good studies that show that a suicide hotline that could loop in emergency services, possibly get you involuntarily committed, and possibly be something that employers and insurers could find out the for the rest of your life reduces mortality, or is that just the kind "common sense" that's so obvious that we don't have to do science?

cj 4y ago

Interesting side effect of this: In my local phone number area code, it's no longer possible to dial local numbers without the area code. That means all outgoing calls require an area code, whereas normally you can dial local numbers without an area code. In addition, we must also dial "1" before the area code when placing outgoing calls to certain neighboring area codes. It's unclear exactly why - I imagine it has to do with some numbers conflicting with the "988" number in some way.

khuey 4y ago
Area codes that were not already using ten digit dialing and where the central office code 988 was already in use (i.e. there exist phone numbers in the area code of the form 988-NNNN) were required to switch to ten digit dialing for this (or renumber the 988-NNNN numbers, which is what area code 701 in North Dakota did).
Taniwha 4y ago
there's more to it than that - lots of phone/phone systems have built algorithms tell them how long a phone number is, and place a call once you've hit that length - for example "911" has a length - one thing that's been happening behind the scenes (mandated by the FCC) is that all the phones in the US have been quietly getting software upgrades to make "988" terminate at 3 digits .... this effectively means you can't dial local numbers that start with 988 .... there are no 7-digit numbers that start with 911 but some that start with 988 - there are no area codes that start with either. It's all a tremendous ongoing hack .... Interestingly it used to be that all area codes (and emergency numbers) had a 1 or a 0 as the second digit and no local exchange numbers did - that's why you didn't have to type that initial 1 (which is also the NA international dialing code) - exchanges could easily detect an out of area code call (and figure out the 7/10 digit thing). Then faxes and modems came along the number of required phone numbers in the US effectively doubled and they ran out

bigbillheck 4y ago

"988" is a perfectly valid 7 digit prefix. Turns out they're dealing with that fact by making 10 digit dialing mandatory in area codes that have it.

JohnTHaller 4y ago
Requiring 10 digit dialing was implemented in the affected areas 9 months ago. As an aside, I haven't dialed a 7 digit number in about 20 years. Then again, I live in NYC with 7 different area codes.
Sirened 4y ago
Area-codeless dialing has been dead in many places for ages. My city has had multiple area codes since at least 2000 and so everyone has been providing area codes for well over two decades now. Especially too now that we have people keeping the same phone number for decades (hell, for life even) regardless of where they eventually move, trying to support this feature is a losing cause since many people would be forced to figure out the unstated area code in order to dial.

adamredwoods 4y ago

Finally. This is excellent. Offloading mental health issues from the police is critical to reforming our country. For some of the doubters on this initiative, NPR had a good discussion: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/16/1111868486/calling-988-in-the-u-s-will-now-get-you-help-for-a-mental-health-crisis https://www.npr.org/2022/07/16/1111868486/calling-988-in-the...

kelseyfrog 4y ago
Hope to see much more of this unbundling in the future.
throwaway988 4y ago
It's not reasonable to expect police officers to excel at everything. Maybe this is better. That said, I recently had the opportunity to watch (at length) a team of officers deal with someone experiencing a severe crisis. I can hardly believe the level of professionalism and kindness they exhibited. I'm anon, so I'll admit it--I cried and cried after watching that.

TexanFeller 4y ago

I’ve heard people advise not to call such hotlines because their intervention is not limited to just talking to you. It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was.

takenpilot 4y ago
This is true, actually. A good friend of mine disappeared for a while because of this. The story he told me about the experience afterward was wild.
tyingq 4y ago
Some of that is on the FAQ page: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs Will 988 calls be referred to 911? Currently, a small percentage of Lifeline calls require activation of the 911 system when there is imminent risk to someone’s life that cannot be reduced during the Lifeline call. In these cases, the crisis counselor shares information with 911 that is crucial to saving the caller’s life. So it does sound like that can happen. Though I don't know what else they could reasonably do if it sounds like the caller is imminently going to do serious self-harm.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  This is likewise true of any human interaction. It’s not like they’re going to promise to never refer a situation to emergency services.
myself248 4y ago
Yup. A friend related a similar story to me. Having some counselors stop by or something, might be cool, but the police are basically the opposite of that, at least today, at least in most places. I can't imagine a worse sequence of events to kick off.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  You don’t hear about the police interventions that go well.

optimalsolver 4y ago

Just in time for the crypto crash. I kid. I kid.

bone_frequency 4y ago
Would be funny if it was only crypto and not the whole global economy.

kyledrake 4y ago

The other really important thing here would be requiring healthcare to cover therapy. I have many friends that need therapy for trauma/cPTSD issues that cannot afford it and thus don't seek help. It will more than pay for itself in prevention before mental health issues become worse and then require crisis intervention. It could substantially improve the overall health of America in a lot of ways.

WebbWeaver 4y ago

Maybe we should rebrand it as a mental health hotline and directory. Most people dont know what resources for this actually exist and what they do. Mental health remediation does not have a good track record everywhere.

colechristensen 4y ago
Honestly a big part of the problem is resources don’t exist in a timely manner. I’m currently waiting for a neuropsych followup for a minor concussion which had to be scheduled six months out. I’ve had a friend in the middle of a manic episode unable to get care with their existing provider for weeks. The state of mental health service availability is ridiculous.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwaway988 4y ago

For those who might ever contemplate this, maybe you'd like to hear a bit from me. I've been both depressed life-long and have probably spent more time in such contemplation than virtually anyone else here. (I'm pretty happy now, so no need to worry.) One of the worst things about this is the feeling that you can't talk to anyone about it, as the moment you do, you start having to take care of _them_ emotionally, at a time when you just can't. If you can afford it, a good therapist is an option--you pay them so you don't have to take care of them. How to find one? I don't know. Try several. Here's some first aid. First, no one gets out of life alive. Usually, there's no need to hurry your demise, as you'll be dead soon enough. And as many have observed, subjective time accelerates. If you're 35, your life is more than half done anyway. Second, before you take steps, try to remember a few things you always wanted to do. Do them first. I've always been partial to waterfalls. Mountains are great. Music festivals can be pretty cool. Go eat your favorite foods a few more times. Third, if everything seems bleak, get wasted. Probably things will seem less urgent in the morning. Longer term, try to find something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. That's the trifecta, but even one goes a long way. Worked for me. Will your problems pass? Probably, but maybe not. The pain, though, will lessen. What if you're dealing with someone else suicidal? Just listen and keep listening, without making yourself an emotional burden. If you can, do what a friend would do. There might come a moment, appropriate to the relationship, where you can let the person know that you'd be devastated if they killed themselves. (I think it's okay to exaggerate a bit on this point.) Godspeed. (I don't comment on HN, and likely HN prefers it that way. But this seems like an unusually important topic.)

vasco 4y ago
> What if you're dealing with someone else suicidal? Just listen and keep listening, without making yourself an emotional burden. Careful with this, it's easy as a partner of someone suffering from this to over time get too impacted by the constant depression talk and walking on egg shells to not say the wrong thing. My recommendation is to help your friend or partner get professional help, if after a couple of months of listening you're still just listening to same stuff. Otherwise it'll take a toll on you and two depressed people are worse than one.

questiondev 4y ago

it would be nice if they had this for people with substance abuse disorders who have nobody and want to get clean

kromem 4y ago

I wonder at how proving a legal path to ending life for anyone (with a lengthy waiting period and multiple psych sessions) would reduce the instances of impromptu suicide. My suspicion is that the availability of a legitimized path to the same result, but with a far less traumatizing method for both the individual and their loved ones, might allow for transitioning people into getting help when that's not the outcome they really want and provide a respectful and humane exit for those that clinically and chronically find living unbearable. I'm not sure that the most ethical approach to life is forcing people to continue with it against their will, it is clearly not working, and by pushing the pursuit of death underground we're likely missing tens of thousands of people each year who would turn away from that downward spiral through treatment. The people I knew that eventually committed suicide due to chronic depression spent many years thinking about it - a year waiting list for a state authorized humane option I'm sure would have been fine with any of them. But the ones that committed suicide in response to temporary circumstances didn't have any outlet other than admitting the intent to commit a crime and facing the social and economic consequences of that being outed. Even the number of stories I've heard from survivors about the regret as soon as it was too late to take back is harrowing. I'd have to wonder how many push the button for the nitrogen chamber (the likely method for state authorized suicide) only to regret it in the last moment where someone could successfully abort the procedure to save them. The low level of repeat attempts would be promising for the availability of "suicide with emergency break" alone. The religious puritanism surrounding suicide has doomed us to adopt policies and attitudes towards it as a society that probably do more harm than good.

TechBro8615 4y ago
No, if someone has lost their motivation to live, that is the fault of the community around them, and it’s the responsibility of society to fix the failures that led to that loss of motivation. The path to fixing these failures is not to offer state-sponsored (or at least state-sanctioned, as your comment implies) lethal injection for anyone who asks for it. That’s sweeping the problems under the rug. I’m not religious in any way, but the ideas you suggest in your comment make me deeply uncomfortable, because they strike me as the ultimate betrayal of the miracle of random chance that led to our existence, with an almost lackadaisical disregard for human suffering, to the point of systemizing the process of ignoring it.

dna_polymerase 4y ago

> follows a three-year joint effort by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to put crisis care more in reach for people in need. This initiative is part of President Biden’s comprehensive strategy to address our nation’s mental health crisis Three years ago Trump was in office. Why does everything in U.S. politics has to be so stupid?

malwarebytess 4y ago

Have there been many thorough studies of the efficacy of these hotlines?