 Which leads to the question, what can be done to keep people from hurting themselves in those situations? Many or most suicides are very impulsive. Dr. Paul Nestat, the psychiatrist we met earlier, says the time between the impulse and act is usually very short. There's a study that finds 87% of people make that decision and then act on it in the same day. About a quarter of people, it's within five minutes. And so what happens in those impulsive moments is people use what they have available to them. It comes on very quickly. If there's nothing available, the impulse can pass.