Clarke Carlisle says bereaved stranger helped save his life

Former footballer Clarke Carlisle has told how a stranger in a Liverpool park persuaded him not to kill himself and to contact his family after he was reported missing last month.

Lancashire police issued an appeal for information about Carlisle’s whereabouts on 15 September after his family reported him missing from his Preston home. Following a 12-hour search, the 38-year-old was found “very unwell but safe” in Liverpool and was taken to hospital.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live on Tuesday morning, the former Premier League player described travelling to Liverpool with the intention of taking his own life. “I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t have my phone with me,” Carlisle told the presenter Adrian Chiles.

“Obviously I was lurking in the shadows, looking for, you know, this place and that place, trying to mind my own business, and this car pulled up while I was sat in a park and a guy came over and said, ‘Oh I thought it was you, you know your family is looking for you’. I guessed as much, but I didn’t know the extent of how far it had gone,” said Carlisle.

“This guy you know, sadly for him, his friend had killed himself a few days earlier and he said ‘I thought this was you and I could not go by not checking’ because he’d heard the state that I was in ... I didn’t want his help sat in the park, but this guy came and sat next to me and he hugged me and he cried on my shoulder, just urging me to get in touch with my family.”

Carlisle is a former chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association and made more than 500 appearances for nine clubs during his playing career from 1997 to 2013. In 2002 he was named “Britain’s brainiest footballer” in a television quiz show and, in 2010, he beat the defending champion on the game show Countdown.

He has spoken openly about his battles with mental ill health and founded the Clarke Carlisle Foundation, a charity for people with dual diagnosis – a condition that has been described as “mental health problems co-occurring with drug or alcohol misuse”.

Carlisle told the Guardian last year how he was attempting to turn his life around after trying to kill himself in 2014. “It overwhelms me in a positive sense how miraculous it is to still have motor functions and use of my body,” he said. “I’m delighted, blessed that I can use my life.”

Also speaking on Radio 5 Live, Carlisle’s wife, Carrie, said she was at home, pregnant, when her husband went missing last month. “I didn’t expect to hear from him again to be honest, I thought that was it,” she said. She described receiving a call from a stranger who told her he was sitting next to her husband.

“I heard his voice and it was literally like the best moment of my life because I thought I’d never hear from him again, and this wonderful gentleman stayed with him,” she said, describing the people who helped her husband as “little Scouse angels”.

Carrie Carlisle admitted that she struggled to fully understand her husband’s condition. “I’ve never had depression,” she said. “I wouldn’t know it if it bit me in the bum. I’m just not equipped for it.

“I judged a crisis by my own standards. What I thought was minor was literally the end of the world for Clarke and if I could go back I would stop using my own mental framework as a reference.”

In the UK and Ireland, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Papyrus are contactable on 0800 068 41 41 or by texting 07786 209 697, or emailing pat@papyrus-uk.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.