News Report

Man Texts Suicide Note to Wife Before Leaping Off Cliff
Terrence O'Brien, Mirror.Co.UK News
Apr 15, 2009
http://www.switched.com/2009/04/15/man-texts-suicide-note-to-wife-before-leaping-off-cliff/

I discovered an article about a forty-six year old British man who committed suicide by jumping off the cliffs of Hogarth Bay. The man left a suicide note like most suicide victims do. Tragedies like this may happen daily; but what I found interesting is that the man decided not to write his suicide note on pen and paper. The man actually sent his suicide note to his wife via the text message. I felt this article to be relevant to information technologies because it just shows how much today’s technologies play a part in our lives. I, personally, think that leaving a person’s final words in a text message is ridiculous, but it actually could have saved the man’s life. When the man’s wife received his text message she immediately alerted authorities who sent a helicopter to try to help save the man’s life. The authorities showed up the second he leapt off of the Cliffside, but imagine how much different the situation would be if we did not have the technologies like texting. If the man were to have left a tangible note on paper, there would have been no telling when his wife would have discovered the letter, and no chance the authorities would have made it to the cliffs in time.