A Broken Message

When Jim Reed of El Paso, Texas, checked his e-mail one morning last April, he found a note from a Pittsburgh-area woman with whom he had been communicating for ten days. Unlike her previous upbeat messages, however, this one had a frightening tone. It read, "goodbye loved knwihn yu i amj leavig."

Alarmed, Reed responded, "What does the letter you just sent mean?"

When the woman didn't reply, he wrote back, "Please talk to me." Finally she typed, "I am flalling asleep waht ti say gildgye ti ny friends."

An army retiree, Reed, 52, decoded the broken message as a suicide reference. "What is your phone number?" he typed.

The woman sent a phone number. Reed called. At first the line was busy; then it just rang and rang. A telephone operator connected him with the police. Reed told his story and faxed them what the woman had written.

Officers arrived at the woman's home, and when she didn't respond, they broke in and found her semiconscious. She told them she had taken 60 pills. Police immediately transported her to a hospital.

Pittsburgh police officer Paul Mc Comb answered the phone call from Reed that set the woman's rescue in motion. "He used his instinct to realize she was in distress," Mc Comb said. "He did an outstanding job." The woman, now in counseling, has thanked Reed for his timely intervention.

Short Answer Questions

1. Give another word which carries the same meaning as "upbeat" (Paragraph 1) .
2. By "waht ti say gildgye ti ny friends" (Paragraph 3) , what did the woman mean to say?
3. Why is it that Reed could be so alert to the woman's message?
4. What is the reason that the woman committed suicide?
5. How did Reed give proof to Pittsburgh police informing that the woman was in a dangerous state?

(Keys.)