Saving Lives Via Text Message
The suicide rate for teenage girls is at a 40-year high. A nonprofit called Crisis Text Line is providing help — sometimes lifesaving help — through a medium trusted by young people: text messages.
This is the first story in an NPR series, "Take a Number," that will explore problems around the world and the people who are trying to solve them.
Elisheva Adler was 20 years old, sitting in pajamas in her childhood bedroom in Long Island, the first time she saved someone's life via text message.
Adler had just started volunteering as a counselor for Crisis Text Line. The 4-year-old nonprofit provides free crisis intervention through a medium that is increasingly favored by young people: texts. Using the code 741741, counselors have exchanged more than 50 million messages with people
