What if he was normally a great guy - but stopped taking his medication - and this was the result? If only any one of those people would have done something... they managed to get him out after he died after all.

What would have happend if a bunch of people jumped in to rescue him and were then in trouble. Would the "rescuers" have just sat back and continued to watch?

What was the point of them even being there anyway if they weren't going to do anything? Isn't that a waste of resources?

For those who did not read the entire article:

What if they tried to rescue him and one of the rescuers died in the process because this other guy was off his meds?

As if spelling bee contestants didn't already have enough of a stigma to overcome, this is the new venue this year.

Oh lord, that is so gay

its inappropriate to laugh...
its inappropriate to laugh...
its inappropriate to laugh...

Doesn't change my view. Just because you can be medicated out of a choice doesn't make the choice unacceptable. But if the state is willing to say pre-emptively (not just because of the choice made) that you're so incapable of making personal decisions that we will deprive you of personhood and dictate your life to you then opens a different can of worms.

Though it would be nice if there was a place people could go and say "I'm ready to die" and they're asked if they'd like to talk to someone about it, encouraged to fill out some forms that will make things easier afterward, and then given a pill and a quiet room. But all of that requires getting rid of the notion that deciding on suicide is prima facie evidence that one is crazy, or that even if one is crazy, one is not allowed to be so.

If nothing else to make sure nobody else got themselves killed doing something stupid in response.

That chopper was on the call we witnessed, over by the Cliff House. We still don't know if they ever found the "surfer in distress" they were looking for.

...out loud
...out loud
...out loud