The boy is understood to have sent a message via the site on Wednesday

A British teenager who took a drugs overdose has been saved after the American girl he was chatting to online raised the alarm.

The 16-year-old boy from Oxfordshire had sent her a message suggesting he intended to commit suicide.

Although she did not know where he lived, calls via the White House and the British Embassy enabled Abingdon police to save the boy's life.

The boy, who has not been named, made a full recovery after hospital treatment.

Still conscious

It is believed that he was using the social networking site late on Wednesday night and sent a private message to a girl in Maryland saying that he was going to harm himself.

She told her mother, who called local police.

The police called a "special agent" at the White House, the British Embassy in Washington and finally the police control room in Abingdon.

Staff narrowed down his location to eight possible addresses, and officers found the teenager at the fourth house they tried. He had taken an overdose, but was still conscious.