A British teenager’s suicide note on Facebook sparked a transatlantic rescue mission which saved his life.

The 16-year-old boy’s threat to kill himself, sent to a girl 3,600 miles away, in Maryland, America, was the starting point for an extraordinary race against time.

When she read his private post at 11.30pm on Wednesday night his American friend told her parents, who called the local state police.

The only details they were given were his name and the fact he went to school in Oxforshire.

Within one hour the girl’s distress call was passed all the way across the across the Atlantic to Thames Valley Police via a White House Special Agent, the British Embassy in Washington DC and The Metropolitan Police in London.

Armed with scant facts from his Facebook profile, Thames Valley Police Officers turned to other internet sites, including Google and online electoral roll search services to trace him.

They managed to narrow down the boy’s home to eight possible addresses, dispatching officers to each one.

At 2.30am, three hours after his message was sent the boy was found at the fourth address, alive but suffering from an overdose of prescription pills.

The boy, who has not been named, was rushed by ambulance to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where he made a full recovery.

Oxfordshire Commander Chief Supt Brendan O’Dowda praised the tenacity of officers on both sides of the Atlantic.

He said: “When it did find its way to Thames Valley Police it would have been quite easy for any number of people to decide there wasn’t enough information to go on.

“We really didn’t have much to go on. It was just scant information.

“But due to the tenacity and professionalism of a number of people we managed to pin down a number of addresses across Oxfordshire then went through the painful and laborious process of visiting the addresses to find the lad.

“It took up time and effort but it was time and effort absolutely well spent.”

The teenager was chatting on Facebook speculating about taking his own life when he wrote.

He wrote: “I’m going a way to do something I’ve been thinking about for a while then everyone will find out.”

His parents were too distressed to comment but the boy has been released from hospital and was recovering at home.

Chief Supt O’Dowda added: “Without the girl in Maryland this wouldn’t have happened. It is a credit to her to have been brave enough to have instigated this.”

Amanda Miles, a local campaigner for Papyrus, a suicide awareness charity for young people, said: “There are cases where children are egged on by people on websites so it is amazing to hear a positive outcome and that being on a computer has saved somebody.

“It’s fantastic he’s alive, but his parents must be traumatised."

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