A Collier County detective credited with saving the life of a young girl who threatened to kill herself live on the Internet speaks to WINK News.

The scare comes just days after a Miami teenager overdosed on drugs live via webcam.

"Essentially we're seeing everything she's doing and hearing everything she's doing," Detective Scott Rapisarda, Collier County Sheriff's Office, says.

It's on sites like liveblog.com that teens are crying out for help. Friday, a young girl in Naples threatened to stab herself live on the Internet. A concerned man from Texas reported what he was watching unfold live on the Internet to the Collier County Sheriff's Office. That's when Detective Scott Rapisarda got a wake-up call and went to work.

"People shouldn't be afraid to contact us," Det. Rapisarda says. "It could help, and in this instance it did."

Det. Rapisarda, with the special crimes bureau, located the website, created an account, posed as a young female from Naples and began an on-line chat with the 12-year-old.

His chat led deputies right to her house within 90 minutes.

"The chatting thing isn't training per se. They give you tips -- you see what works on your own," Det. Rapisarda says.

While he has formal training, his chatting skills have grown with trying to catch sexual predators on-line.

Det. Rapisarda says it's important to contact the authorities if you see someone crying out for help on-line, because detectives can't monitor every website. And, he adds, sometimes kids slip through the cracks.

"In the case in Miami if somebody had just made a call, we could have at least tried," he says. "A law enforcement agency could have tried if we'd only known."