This teen’s struggle with depression led her and brother to create app to help others

“I started passing out more and more often and I was terrified of going anywhere,” Hannah, 15, told ABC News. “Because what if I passed out and no one was around or what if someone took advantage of me?”

Hannah, a high school sophomore from Georgia, became anxious and depressed and started to self-harm, she said.

From that dark point in her life, Hannah and her younger brother, Charlie Lucas, 13, created an app to help people in distress.

The idea for the notOK App came from Hannah, who told her mom she wished there was an app she could use to quickly alert her family and friends when she needed help either physically or emotionally.

Charlie heard his sister’s idea and used coding skills he learned in summer camp to design the app.

“I helped illustrate it out so he would know what to do,” Hannah said of her brother. “He looked at my drawings and he coded it to tell the coders exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it to look.”

Charlie said his motivation for building the app came from watching his sister spiral into depression.

“I saw Hannah depressed, and she told me about her idea, and I started wire-framing it,” he said. “Making this app made her feel better and that made me feel better.”

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