Scrolling through the Instagram feed on her phone, 22-year-old Ingebjørg Blindheim explains why she has been given the nickname "the lifeguard".

"I see a lot of people who want to die," explains the young Norwegian.

Intervening to help suicidal Instagram users is not a role Ingebjørg would have chosen for herself. She doesn't work for the social media site, and she isn't paid for what she does. Nor is she formally qualified to offer help, having received no training in mental healthcare. Instead she feels compelled to act, realizing she's often the last chance of help for those posting their despair online.

She monitors Instagram constantly, identifying those who are close to the edge and alerting the police and ambulance services. She admits to having sleepless nights. She knows that being so distracted by her phone can anger her family and friends, but she worries that without her vigilance, someone might die.

Ingebjørg is currently keeping track of around 450 private Instagram accounts - ones that need approval from their owners before you are allowed to follow them. Most of these belong to young women who post about their darkest feelings, though there are a few boys as well. It's a secretive world of private thoughts, images and confessions, governed by an unwritten "no snitching" rule. When she calls the police, she is careful not to say too much about the community for fear of alienating its members. She often feels like a detective, scrabbling around to find out as much information as she can about an anonymous user to pass on.

The reaction she receives from professionals is mixed. Sometimes she is thanked for acting, other times she is disbelieved. Earlier this year, Ingebjørg says she tried to get police to intervene in a case where a girl said she was going to take her own life. She says officers said the girl had threatened to do it 16 times before and they didn't believe her. But she says the next day, they called Ingebjørg to tell her the girl had gone through with her threat.

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Source: BBC News website