On Monday night, probably billions of connections were made among computers in all corners of America.
One of those connections stretched from Jesse Coltrane's home in Camden to a computer in Sacramento, Calif., and police there say it was nothing short of a lifeline.
Coltrane, 21, alerted Sacramento police shortly before midnight Monday that an 18-year-old that he knew only as "Josh" was suicidal and cutting his forearm with a razor blade right before his eyes as the two spoke via webcam.
"My heart fell to the ground," Coltrane told the Daily News yesterday. "I thought he was going to kill himself right then and there."
Armed with only a cell-phone number that Coltrane provided, the California cops tracked the man down and took him to a hospital for observation.
"He probably wound up saving this guy's life in the long term," said Sacramento Police Sgt. Norm Leong. "It took us a little while to find his address, but the family members opened the door. The male subject had tried to go to bed, but he had some marks consistent with cutting his wrists."
Coltrane, who owns an entertainment company, said that he was on a business phone call Monday night when he got an AOL instant message from "Josh." Coltrane said that the man often visited his MySpace page, on which he promotes artists and models.
"I need to talk to you about something serious," the conversation began. "It's hard to explain but I know it's going to hurt a lot of people."
The two chatted and later spoke by webcam for a few hours, Coltrane said, and the man mentioned a bad home life, prior sexual abuse and troubles at school. The "dark hour" came around 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, Coltrane said.
"What's the point of living?" the man asked Coltrane. "There's no point to life."
"You're very important to me," Coltrane replied. "You have a value."
When it appeared that "Josh" was cutting himself, Coltrane pretended he had an incoming call, put the webcam on mute and dialed Sacramento police.
"They were very professional," Coltrane said. "They told me to keep him calm."
But things got worse.
"Go and live your life. Sorry and thank you," the man said, before logging off the webcam. Coltrane was left staring at a blank screen, in a state of shock, he said.
"It was a horrible moment," he said.
Coltrane called Sacramento again and learned that officers were at the home and had found the man with injuries that were not life-threatening.
In Camden yesterday, any suggestion that he was a hero didn't quite sit well with Coltrane.
"It was just the right thing to do," he said. "It's all in a day's work for me."
In November, police were called after thousands of people watched a Florida teen die of a deliberate drug overdose via webcam. In 2007, a mother in Missouri allegedly set up a fake MySpace account to cyber-bully a 16-year-old girl, who later commited suicide.
Coltrane spends time on MySpace and Facebook, both for business and when he's bored, but said that he always keeps things positive.
"The Internet is a great thing," he said. "If this guy had no one to communicate with, maybe he would have done it." To see more of the Philadelphia Daily News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Philadelphia Daily News Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, Philadelphia Daily News