against_the_clock wrote:
Yeah that makes sense, and I am now getting the impression that these threats of suicide are so common on here that it is impossible to alert everyone's family without it turning into a full time job. However, Alex was sued over an incident where someone threatened violence and Alex wasn't able to contact the guy's family before he did something
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/18 ... perger18/2 It seems likely that someone might try to sue over the website not contacting family members in a suicide, so I thought we may have to report it anyway, but then again people sue over everything and I don't know enough about the law to say whether this is a legit reason.
But yeah, I guess it looks like there is really nothing you can do, just wondering if there was an existing protocol for this.
I think it might go a bit like this in terms of things
legally: If there is absolutely NO other avenue for someone to get help other than on WP (unable to pick up a phone and make an appointment with a professional or call a phone counsellor, completely unable to get themselves to a local psych unit or ER, no family, no friends, no neighbours, nothing but an internet connection, living in the middle of nowhere)
then people online might be obliged to help. All other avenues for help must be exhausted before WP is legally obliged to do anything. I suppose we're obliged to recommend them places to get help (family, friends, GP, hospital, phone counselling), but we should be under no obligation to contact emergency services ourselves unless it's the absolute last resort. I'm pretty sure most people in suicide crisis can use a phone to call for help, unless they're non verbal.
Another legal argument is that suicide is a choice, other forms of death aren't. Nobody can be negligent for their death if they have a will to die (unlike say, someone on life support who might have a will to live and has their machine wrongly turned off).
The boy in the example above had family, and they were obliged to help him first. It wasn't up to WP to tell them that their son was suicidal. I'm sure somebody at the time suggested ways for him to get help (tell his family) and that would have been enough for WP to escape liability.