1-800-273-8255

In school you learn all about drinking and driving, texting and driving, suicidal thoughts and the millions of ways you can avoid those things, but you never really paid any attention to the real message they were sending you. As you go through school you have an endless amount of speakers come in and talk about their experiences with those topics but you never really care to think about what would happen if those things were to occur in your life. About two weeks, my best friends brother committed suicide,  he was 20 years old. Just like every other teenage he had his share of problems and did his share of doing silly things. He and his girlfriend, or ex girlfriend i should say, were fighting and he decided to go out to a club with a bunch of friends and drink a little too much. When he found out his girlfriend was at a different club he decided he just had to go comfort her and ended up seeing her with another guy. Infuriated and upset he took his car and headed home, around 2:30 he knew what he wanted to do, he texted his mom saying he loved her, and slammed his car into a cement toll booth going 130 mph. I got a call around 8:30 in the morning with her broken voice saying Dylan had killed himself. At that moment, all I could think about what the continuous lectures they give you on drinking and driving and calling someone for help when you need it and I wish I could go back to listening to my English teacher talk about her friend dying from drinking and driving and ask her if this is what it truly felt like. Now every time I hear someone talk of drinking and driving or suicide, I hope I can stand in front of teenagers at a high school and tell them what kind of feeling this tragedy brings out in a person and hope they have the epiphany during my speech instead of after the phone call like I did.

http://www.wesh.com/news/1-killed-in-toll-booth-crash-on-sr-417-in-orlando/27655810#!bQ5sgt