I was with some school children on the outside of a school house. The average age was about 15. One slender, black-haired boy was occupying my attention. He was distraught because the other school children didn't seem to like him. To attract their attention, he had decided to act as if he was going to commit suicide, although he didn't actually intend to kill himself. The previous day he had begun practicing with one method of suicide.

He had finally decided he would act as if he were going to hang himself. He fashioned a noose and I had a very clear view of it. He then went onto the porch of the schoolhouse and began practicing with some ropes he had there. One rope was stretched horizontally between two poles. He put his neck on it. He then tried rigging some other ropes around his body. One of the ropes which was going to support his weight stretched close to where I was standing and was tied together in some knots near me. I figured if necessary I could pull one of the knots loose if he got into trouble.

It was morning and the other school children hadn't yet arrived. We could see a group of probably 20 of them in the distance approaching the school. The boy began preparing his noose. Just as the other children finally reached us, he slipped the noose around his neck and jumped. His neck stretched as he hang gasping in mid-air.

I immediately saw that something had gone wrong. The boy's trick hadn't worked and he was actually hanging. I reached for the knot, pulled it loose and caused the ropes to fall. The boy tumbled, shaken, to the ground.

Another fellow and I helped the boy away from the others. A few minutes later a school teacher appeared next to us. He told the boy he wasn't going to tell his parents about the incident this time, but he didn't want it to happen again. The boy appeared to have learned his lesson.