INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — A call into the "Smiley Morning Show" for marriage advice turning into a life-saving milestone for a Plainfield man. He's now sharing a powerful message about how the concern of strangers can save a life.
Brett Wrin is in a very different place today than he was a year ago.
Dealing with depression and trouble in his marriage, he called into The Smiley Morning Show on WZPL on a whim.
"I called for marriage advice. Probably the stupidest thing anybody can do is to call a radio station for marriage advice." Wrin said. "It was really to see if I should continue to work on this relationship or if I should see other people."
Wrin said he received a lot of negative feedback on the air and on-line.
"I am usually good with negative feedback, but that day, with the whole depression kind of just building up, I just decided that it was the time." Wrin said.
He decided he would take his life.
"After I got off the radio I was in the driveway to my house, and I went inside I was upset, " he said. "I tweeted the radio station. People will say for attention. Maybe, I don't know. I was looking for more help so I tweeted them saying I did what I did."
By that time, Wrin had taken an overdose of one of his depression medications. He says he turned his music up and waited for the end. But thankfully, the Smiley morning crew saw his tweet.
Nikki Reed said the radio team worried.
"A tweet from him first that was kind of like none of it matters now and mentioned taking some pills, and then there was another tweet that it should be over soon," she said. "I remember feeling very panicked. So Toni, Will and I ran over to our program director and we said, 'Hey this is going on. We don't know if it's true or not true, but we are worried.'"
The radio crew were able to doing some quick investigating and narrowed down Wrin's last name and the town he lived in from social media and called 9-1-1.
The medicine was already starting to take effect when police arrived.
"Police were knocking on the door. At that point I struggled to get up and I went to the door. I fell over," Wrin said. "Police were there. They called an ambulance and the ambulance took me to hospital."
After a few days in the hospital, Wrin recovered. That's also when he learned that it was the Smiley morning crew who saw his tweets and likely saved his life.
"I am not embarrassed by it. Some people are I am not embarrassed, it happens it's life," Wrin told Eyewitness News. "I am hoping that people will know that a random group of people from a radio station took the time out of their day to make sure I stayed a live. People, no matter who you are, if you think you don't have anybody, you have somebody standing in your corner."
Earlier this month, Wrin met the Smiley crew and thank them in person for saving his life a year ago.
"I am so happy for him I am so proud of the work he has done and his family and how much better everything is. I think so many people don't see the end of the rainbow, they don't understand it can get so much better and all you need to do is keep working at it and he's done a great job, and he is a wonderful example of how it can always get better," Reed said. "We made a phone call, we were lucky enough that he reached out to somebody, even if it was just Twitter but I think that is always the most important part if somebody is saying something you just have to listen to them and hear what they say.
Wrin is happy they were listening and said, "If they didn't do what they did, I wouldn't have a son, my daughter would be fatherless and my wife would be a widow. It's really hard to put into words to show your appreciation to people that care for you, that you've never met."
Wrin made a video documenting his journey and uploaded it to YouTube.