Colorado Telemarketer Answers Call For Help

A Greeley telemarketer phoned a number in Spokane, and an elderly woman contemplating suicide answered.

Joe Loma was able to keep the woman on the phone until his boss contacted Spokane police, who went to the woman’s house.

Loma works for The Upper Edge telemarketing firm and Thursday morning was calling to recruit volunteers for the American Cancer Society in Washington state.

Loma said he asked the woman in Spokane how she was.

“She said, ‘Not so good.’ We talked about having a bad day for awhile, and eventually, we started talking about the Cancer Society campaign,” Loma said.

“She said she had no friends and her husband died 20 years ago and she had no contact with her family … and she started crying.”

It was then the woman told Loma she felt she would be better off dead.

“I knew that was a warning because I’d been through that,” Loma said. “I tried suicide once, and I knew how she must have felt.”

They talked some more and when the woman mentioned suicide again, saying, “Things are just building up … it would be better if I was gone …” Loma contacted his supervisor, Arnie Duran, who called the Spokane police.

Loma kept the woman on the phone for 37 minutes - until a Spokane police officer came on the line and told Loma they were at her house and she would be all right.

On Friday, Loma and fellow employees sent the woman a greeting card and a stuffed toy puppy.

“I think it will give her something to hug,” Loma said.