Your editorial on the national suicide hotline (“Small change to suicide hotline would make a big difference,” Sept. 17) begins with a very bold statement when saying, “but instead of having an easy-to-remember three-digit number at the ready, they have to first look up who to call.” But let’s be real, how many people faced with suicidal tendencies have actually in their life have taken the time to memorize the hotline number?

Suicide is not something that anybody would ever predict to happen in their lifetime. The thoughts and actions are triggered by a certain event that has occurred, and can be an in-the-moment thing. With this, over the radio, during commercials, and in songs they have advertised the suicide hotline number as being 1-800-273-8255.

If the three digit number was to be changed to 988, a number so close to 911, it could easily be confused and mistyped in a time of emergency. 911 and 988 handle very different emergencies, and the suicide hotline upon first calling is a place to just talk and in most cases the police is not involved.

As stated in the editorial, “47,000 Americans died by suicide in 2017” compared to the 2 million calls that the hotline received with the 1-800 at the beginning. That right there shows that the number of people in crisis being saved is over three times larger than those actually took their life. This is such a large number of calls, why confuse people and change the first three digits to 988?

This just doesn’t seem necessary, especially when the hotline is already producing such statistics.

 

Kierra Bumford

Oakland