"Listen to them... the children of the night... what music they make!" Dracula, Bram Stoker.

Yesterday i read a number of articles about people committing suicide after calling for help online through blogs and forums...

I must say that one particular story struck me. It is the story of Brandon Carl Vedas, who was 21 years old, and basically committed suicide "on air" while chatting with other people whom he had invited to watch his webcam.
He had displayed all kinds of pills in front of him (Méthadone 80mg, Klonopin, Restoril, Inderal, Vicodin...) and started swallowing them down while the people watching pathetically encouraged him, even abusing him to have him have more. Only a few watchers tried to dissuade him to do so when they realise that it was no joke... After a couple of hours Brandon died almost in front of them.
The conversation of the chatroom has been recorded... it took me a long while to read it through.. it left me horrified and disgusted!

It also left me with two questions:
What would i have done if i had been in such a situation? I know i would not have encouraged him, but i'm not sure i would have stuck to the chatroom to dissuade that guy, as i usually don't when i get bored with discussions, which are often abusive to the readers anyway. In that case, i would have become an accomplice, i'd have become partly responsible for his death.
Which leads to the second question.... To what extent are we, web-surfers and readers, responsible to the possible death of people who call for help online, and whom blogs and messages we read but do not respond to, because of a lack of time, interest (?), compassion or because of laziness? It occured to me often enough to find a blog or to a message so depressive that i did not have the heart to pay attention to it... and to think that a word could change somebody's life only makes me feel more responsible for what i am receptive to or not...

What is your opinion about that?

If you want more information about the story of Brandon Vedas, aka Ripper, you can check this page:
http://www.brandonvedas.com/
And if you feel interested enough (or is it voyeur? i'm not sure...) you can find the record of the chat on that page:
http://embruns.net/internet/ripper_log.txt

All i can say is that i don't know Brandon Vedas, but i wonder if i'll ever forget him.