So how much is this all worth?

A couple days ago I found out that a friend of mine had her viva. I met this person at a conference. Her viva was 6 hours 20mins long. Apparently, she wasn't treated very well in the viva (wasn't allowed breaks, she burst into tears, stormed out etc). The end result was she had to resubmit her thesis and be reviva'd. She was obviously very depressed and a distressed at the situation. I got a phone call at a silly time in the morning she rang me up very distressed that she couldn't really carry on. I tried to calm her down and told her to seek help from her university counselling service or call the samartians. But last night i found out she tried to take her own life. Shes now in the hospital and I think shes doing OK. But its made me think - how much is this all worth? Its ridiculsous that we begin to value ourselves on the work we do and if we pass a certain exam.

Its distressing because I have my viva coming up in a couple weeks, to know someone who did such a thing is just mind blowing. If i end up having to resubmit and get reviva'd... how would I feel? I am not saying I will feel the same way but its scary that she did something like that. I also feel guilty I couldn't help her but theres nothing that I could do. I wish I could help her but I guess i need to be selfish and concentrate on trying to get through my own stuff so I need to be positive. Its just really upsetting....