I tend to stay fairly calm during emergencies, slipping into do-it mode until the crisis is over. Then I fall apart.

When I was a 16-year-old, high-school student in Montana, a girl I knew threatened to jump off the roof of the building next to the school. I was on my way to the little grocery store on the corner to buy a cold drink for the bus trip to observe my first speech tournament, and happened to be in the right place at a most nerve-twisting time. 

She yelled down at me in a cheerful voice, “Hey Natalie!"

Mostly curious, I responded with, “What are you doing, Connie?” (Some names have been changed for obvious reasons.)

 “I’m going to jump!”

A couple of years prior, I took first aid courses, was a C.P.R. instructor for a large community training event (was I even old enough to do that?) learned to stay calm in a crisis, assign tasks – and I recognized a health issue when I saw one. I am sure most other people also would have realized the scene featuring a teenage girl alone on the roof of a 4-story building was very wrong -- but not every one at every age sees things the same way.

Before I could ask Connie to come down so we could talk about what was bothering her so much, two other girls came out of the school. They were skipping class to smoke behind the old houses across the street. They followed my line of sight to see Connie, who was resting on her elbows at the edge of the roof, and yelled, “Jump!” in unison, as if they had rehearsed the moment. Then they laughed. 

I spun around, pointed to each of them and ordered one to call the police, and the other to go to the principal’s office to tell the office staff what was going on right fucking now. And they did. In fact, they took off at a run. It didn’t occur to me until later to appreciate that they did what I said. At the time, I expected it. In my mind I guess there could be no other response.

Connie cried and poured out her problems. Her father didn’t love her. Nobody understood her. I told her I cared about her and that I did not want her to jump, that no matter how terrible things were, it was okay. She was okay. I have no idea how long we looked at each other or if could see me, or hope, through her tears.

A police squad car pulled up on the opposite side of the street. Someone in the office had called for help. Good. From where Connie was perched on the roof, I knew she could not see the car. “I’ll be right back, okay?” I didn’t stop to think of something better to say.

I casually walked out of her line of sight and then ran over to the police car to tell the officer what Connie was saying and where she was on the roof. I got back to my spot next to the old, mostly empty brick building as quickly as possible and continued trying to convince this fragile, sobbing 16-year-old to come down. I was absolutely cool. I somehow I knew that if I freaked out, my emotional display might, in a very literal way, send her over the edge.

“You can go on back inside now.” The school counselor was suddenly standing next to me. I didn’t know until later that the principal had locked down the school and did not see all the concerned, amused or merely curious faces pressed against the classroom windows. I was looking at Connie -- and there was no way I was going to leave her and go back into the school. So I kept talking.

“Connie let’s go inside and talk. I’m cold out here, aren’t you?”  The counselor, I can’t remember his name -- but this happened over 25 years ago, so I don’t feel too terrible about that -- agreed that was a good idea. But Connie didn’t move. She continued to cry.

Two other police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance arrived and pulled up to the building on the side Connie could not see. I tried not to look at the police or firemen, tried not to alert Connie to their presence.

The sheriff stepped out of his car and moved along the building to get as close to the counselor and me as he could without revealing himself to Connie. He said to the counselor and me in a very quiet voice, “Just keep doing what you’re doing,”

Jesus, how long was this going to go on? I remember smiling up at Connie and trying to camouflage a really deep breath while I maintained what I hoped was a look of genuine optimism and wise understanding on my face -- and I continue to ask her questions. The counselor talked too. We took turns trying to help Connie see all the good in her life, all the possibilities that were hers to pursue.

The sheriff talked in low tones on the radio. Under silent sirens the bright-colored emergency vehicles pulled at my eyes. Flashing lights are difficult to ignore.

In my peripheral vision I saw at least two men enter the building.

Don’t look at them. Don’t look at them. Don’t let her know they are there or she might panic and throw herself off the roof.

We kept talking, the three of us, out there seemingly by ourselves. We were surrounded by, yet isolated from, this tiny part of the world where time slowed because a young girl cried out for help.

I tried again. “Connie, I’m freezing! Let’s go inside, okay?” She took off her jacket and threw it down to me. In those few seconds a whole bunch of teachers and students peering through the windows thought the worst as they watched that jacket fall to the concrete. A girl on the third floor fainted.

“Thanks,” I called up to Connie, after I scooped up the sky-blue jacket from the hard, dirty concrete. My neck muscles felt tight.

As if we were in the girls’ bathroom at a basketball game on a Friday night, Connie called out, “You should keep it. It looks good on you!” I laughed a little bit too much.

It seemed like we had been standing out there for 6 hours. I looked down so I could hide the fact that my eyes were looking for cues from the sheriff. He was signaling something to someone I could not see. A bunch of emergency personnel were behind him, staying close to the side of the building.

While the counselor tried again to get Connie to re-consider killing herself over things that probably wouldn’t matter in the not-so-distant future, I heard noise coming from the sheriff’s radio. I locked eyes with the sheriff just as he yelled, “They got her!”

I snapped my head up in time to see two men moving Connie away from the edge of the roof. She started screaming, “No! No! No! No! Noooo! Gaaaahhhd!” Her grief was loud and long. But they had her.

Instantly my knees buckled. Whoa. How weird.

Before I knew what was going on, the sheriff or someone else -- I can’t be sure because the scene was now chaotic -- was holding me up. Another person wrapped a yellow blanket around me. Suddenly I was in the back of a police car feeling very cold. My head hurt. I was crying. Now that everything was over I guess my body knew it was okay to lose it. My teeth were chattering and my feet were tingling. There was a deep pressure under my collar bone and it was tough to swallow because my throat was as dry as dirt from an ancient tomb.

What if she had jumped? She could have killed herself! At that point my thoughts became entirely selfish. What a thing to do to someone, to me. Why was I the one Connie called out to? Other people came and went during the school day. What if I hadn’t been there, but only the two girls who encouraged her to jump? What if she changed her mind and then fell by accident? Either way I could have witnessed a horrible scene! She might have screamed on the way down and I would have heard her body thudding on the cement. I would have heard bones cracking. I might have seen her brains -- or her eyes bulging out of their sockets. I would have seen blood spilling across the sidewalk.

Then, what if she had jumped but survived? She could have been paralyzed forever or any number of horrible things. Watching Connie jump off this building might have messed my head up for life! I thought of how her jacket looked as it fell four stories and morbidly imagined it filled with Connie instead of air.

I turned my head to look at the entrance of the building and saw another yellow blanket. Wrapped in it, Connie was crying and trying to hug her father, called to the scene as police began their stealthy approach to the rooftop.

“Daddy, do you love me? Do you Daddy? Please Daddy, do you love me?” She was desperate and looked like a beggar pleading for a few crumbs of life-saving bread.

Connie’s father did not have the skills required for dealing with such a moment. Maybe he cared. Maybe he was hurting. But what came out of his mouth was bad medicine for a sick girl.

“This is horse shit!” he said loudly. “You’re embarrassing me!”  No wonder she wanted to throw herself off a building. My tears fell harder and ran together.

Somehow the police separated Connie from her father and put her in the police car with me. I could not know what she was feeling. I hugged her and held her hand as the car left the high school and took us to the local mental health facility, where she was led away, not to be seen in school again for six weeks. Maybe it was longer. A nurse gave me something for my pounding head and some water. When I stopped crying I just sat there for a little while, mentally making my way back to normal.

When I felt warm again and my headache was mostly gone, there was nothing left to do but go back to school. On the phone, my mom agreed that I should go back to school if I did not feel sick. A nurse took me back, where I could feel the unsettled mood of the entire population in the building. A few students wandering the halls looked at me in an odd way, as if hoping I would stop and satisfactorily explain something that actually had nothing to do with me. Or did it?

I asked an office aide where to find the school counselor so I could ask him the very same questions the eyes of other students were asking me. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to know why Connie thought she had no way out, why her father responded the way he did. I wanted to know if I failed in some way by not realizing in advance that someone I saw almost every day needed help.

Of course there could be no soothing answers to my questions, questions many other students had too. We felt bad, but didn’t know why. My best girlfriend Julie, my co-editor for the school paper, told me the next day that Connie told several kids days before her attempt that she was planning to kill herself. They did not believe her, so now there was guilt, worry and a lot of self-criticism in the stairwells.

Julie and I talked to our journalism teacher, Mr. Conner, who agreed the school paper should address the event. A careful editorial and educational articles written by peers might not only prevent something like this from happening again, but could help students and staff members deal with the emotional effects of Connie’s attempted suicide. Julie and I also approached the counselor and worked with him to form a peer-to-peer support group that gave kids an opportunity to talk with each other about things in their lives that seemed, or perhaps really were, huge and awful.

Participating in the support group was helpful, but thinking about what could have happened continued to nag at me until I figured out I needed to do something more. I researched statistics and kept looking for answers. I wrote a poem titled “Sixteen verses for my friend who tried to commit suicide at age 16,” and went to my first speech tournament two weeks later. Though I had never had any coaching, I presented my 10-minute, original oratory about teen suicide and won first place. Almost certainly, I won simply because the emotion in my speech was real.

I realized talking and writing about what took place helped me figure out how to react and where to mentally and emotionally store the whole experience. I know Connie’s suicide attempt was one of the steps on the path to journalism school, where people learn to ask questions and try to understand how and why things happen.

About staying calm during a crisis? I do not know why some people can do that, why I have been able to do that on multiple occasions when it really mattered. These days, day-to-day stresses can really do a number on me. Can I count on being a rock during emergency situations I may face in the future? Is Connie alive and happy today?

I hope so.