Webcam Catches Attempted Suicide on Tape

July 9, 2009 — -- A man frantically called his girlfriend's home as he watched her on his webcam hang herself, sending the woman's father racing downstairs to cut her down.

Mohamed Hossain received a phone call about 9 a.m. Tuesday from his daughter's boyfriend who told him that the 21-year-old was trying to hang herself from a ceiling fan in the family's Phoenix, Ariz., home, according to authorities.

"Her parents ran downstairs and found her hanging by a scarf from the ceiling fan," said Detective James Holmes of the Phoenix Police Department.

"The dad very quickly cut her down and by the time our officers got there she was breathing and semi-conscious," said Holmes. The woman's name was not released due to privacy concerns.

Holmes said that the woman and her Michigan-based boyfriend, who has also not been identified, had been chatting on an online service run by Microsoft when they got into an argument that evidently spurred the suicide attempt.

Reached for comment by ABCNews.com, representatives for Microsoft said they were still looking into the incident.

"They got into an argument and the boyfriend threatened to leave the country and she got very upset," said Holmes. "She climbed on top of a small table and tied one end of a scarf around her neck and the other to a ceiling fan and proceeded to hang herself.

"All of this was caught on the webcam, you can see it happening," said Holmes, who confirmed that the woman has since been released from a hospital where she was taken following the incident.