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[A] change of pace now. We're going to talk about a very unsettling topic. That's suicide.  

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It's one of the leading causes of death among teenagers in the United States.  

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Now the story of one survivor is spreading awareness about a devastating disease rampant among teens -- depression.  

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Allan Chernoff has the story.

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The fact that Jordan Burnham is alive today is a miracle.  

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He is learning to walk again five months after suffering devastating injuries.

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How Jordan came to this is a stunning story, offering life lessons for teens and their parents.  

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He was captain of his golf team at Upper Marion High in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, a baseball pitcher and an anchor on the school's news program.

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One of the most popular seniors, having just been selected to homecoming court.

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What happened?  

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Jordan tried to kill himself.  

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He jumped out of his bedroom window, nine stories up, and fell to the ground on his left side.  

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He fractured his leg, pelvis, arm, wrist and jaw, and was suffering severe internal bleeding.  

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After he was medevaced to the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, doctors said he probably wouldn't make it.

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Earlier in the day, Earl Burnham says he found beer and liquor in the trunk of Jordan's car.  

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Earl and Georgette were careful in confronting their son.  

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First checking with a therapist who was treating Jordan, before grounding him.

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To friends at school, Jordan seemed happy, but there was a pressure cooker, boiling within his mind.  

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Pressure to achieve good grades like his valedictorian older sister, 

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to fit in at his nearly all-white high school and, above all, to not disappoint his parents.

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I hold myself to a certain standard, and when I don't reach that standard 

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or I feel like I failed at something or I feel like I let myself down, then I get pretty down on myself.

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Jordan was struggling academically and his parents had caught him drinking several times.

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All the sudden, it was almost like I hit rock bottom.  

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That was as low as I could go.  

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That was as bad as the depression could've got.  

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I felt like, obviously, I had to take my own life just because I was letting my parents down and I didn't deserve to live anymore.  

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I had to have crawled out of that window and looked down and, 

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still, I was at such a low point that that didn't even back me off, that I still felt like I had to do it.

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Earl and Georgette Burnham were involved parents, well aware of their son's depression.  

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For two years Jordan had been seeing a therapist and taking an antidepressant, but it wasn't enough.  

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Psychiatrist Jeffrey Staub treated Jordan after his suicide attempt.

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Depression can be fatal even when we try and put all of the pieces together, with a psychiatrist, a therapist.

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Suicide is the third leading cause of teenage death.  

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A result of the facts, say experts, that about one in every 20 teenagers suffers from clinical depression.  

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Jordan says he realizes now anyone who's depressed needs to talk it out.

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Say what's on your mind and get out your thoughts and feelings, 

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because it's important, and that's the mistake that I made, was I tried to hide it from even myself.

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A lesson Jordan and his parents hope will prevent other teens from attempting suicide.
