The FCC has approved a new three-digit dial code for the suicide prevention hotline.
It’s going to take some time to get the system up and running, but US residents will eventually be able to call 988 for a mental health emergency, much like you would call 911 for first responders. There are 163 individual crisis centers across the country and they answer about 2.2 million calls per year.
A release from the FCC says they are now in the formal rule-making phase, and they have proposed mandating all service providers to support the number within the next 18 months. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US.
