Suicide Attempts

DURHAM N.C.--Two Duke University students tried to commit suicide during exam period recently.

After pulling three consecutive allnighters in an attempt to finish a term paper, one junior woman took a heavy overdose of sleeping pills. She later recovered.

Another student, a freshman facing her first exams, panicked the night before her chemistry final. After cutting her wrist with a razor blade, she broke a window with her bare hand. She, too, recovered.

Elinor Roy, a counselor for the university, said Duke does not keep records of suicide attempts but added, "The vast majority of Duke students do contemplate suicide."

She said, however, that only one student has actually killed himself on the campus during the last seven years.