Fuckers who do Death by Train.

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve just gotten home after a very long night, most of it spent sitting on a stationary train between stations after some fucker decided to throw him/herself under it.

And it wasn’t the long, boring wait that pissed me off so much. I had the Commuter Rag to do the crossword and the Sudoku puzzle, and I nicked between the carriages for a quick fag too. We weren’t allowed off’ve the train until the emergency services and the train staff arrived to provide ladders and alternative transport, but it wasn’t that.

You know what REALLY shits me? I felt your body right under my seat. I felt the crunch and the little bump and I wondered what the hell we had run over. The looks from the people sitting next to and opposite me conveyed the same thoughts. It’s just not normal stuff to run over stuff on the train line, so I thought maybe some kids had left some tin-cans on the track for a bit of a lark, just like when I was a kid and we used to leave 20c pieces to get them flattened.

But then the train suddenly slowed and came to a dead halt. And within a minute or two the driver made an announcement that you had come to terminal grief and it was unfortunate but it was going to be a long wait, sorry for the delay etc.

THAT shits me too. You are too cowardly to take your own life, so you draw in an unwitting accomplice who has to live with the knowledge that it was his train on his shift that snuffed out your life. The driver was terribly professional and with his calm managed to keep the calm on the entire (packed, peakhour) train, but he has to go home and sleep tonight. And I bet he has flashbacks and bad dreams, none of which are any of his business really, but he has no choice now, does he??

The driver was able to see the mangled remains of your body strewn across and up and down the tracks; by the time we were allowed to disembark your bits had thankfully been covered up with a number of good ol’ tarps…but we passengers could well imagine the carnage underneath thankyewverymuch. Your death is nobody’s business but yours…why make it ours too?

Oh, and why the FUCK did you need to do it during the evening peak? Way to spoil a whole lot of folks’ evenings you stupid fuck.

Have a happy death, you will be surely remembered.

2

I’ve met someone who had the dubious distinction of having been the last person someone else saw before she was killed - she pulled out in front of his fully loaded dump truck which he was doing the speed limit for that road, without sufficient distance for her to actually get up to speed.

I met him some years after the accident. And it was still fucking him up. There was damn-all he could have done to prevent it, once she chose to pull out in front of him, but his mind still wouldn’t let it go.

FTM, ISTR here in the US that rail workers generally will have run over someone if they’ve been guiding a train for more than a year. And it’s probably the biggest single stress in their jobs, even if that particular individual hasn’t yet had that pleasure, wondering when it will happen is something of a constant stresser.

I don’t want to speak for all suicides, nor all suicide attempts. There are several common modes of thought that I’ve seen/heard being used by survivors to explain what they were thinking. Some suicides do want to cause the maximum disruption to others with their deaths. So, I suspect that this guy probably did choose the timing for his exit with the intent of causing the maximum disruption, rather than because he was ignorant of the effect it would have on the OP and other commuters.

3

Well then allow me to be the first to say to those people “Shame about your life sucking and all, but you probably deserved it for being such a fucking asshole.”

My heart goes out to the driver, and to everyone whose evening was so unpleasantly disrupted. And if valuing the evenings of a few hundred people who are just trying to get home over the life of one asshole makes me a bad person, then I can live with that.

4

Yeah, my question was one of those WTF ones rather than a sincere enquiry into ‘why at that time’. I realise that many suicides are wanting max impact to alleviate the lack of potency they feel in their lives etc. But at the end of the day (and theirs particularly) they’re not going to get ANY jollies out of seeing the complete chaos and mayhem they’ve caused. Much easier for all concerned if they just go away and squish themselves under a rock or summat…the rock doesn’t care that it deaded the bloke, and the bloke is happy 'cos he’s dead. EVERYONE WINS THEN, YES??

5

Fair enough. I sometimes find it hard to differentiate between genuine questions, and rhetorical ones.

Now, on a snarky level, it’s a shame you can’t vote for the railway worker you’d most like to see having to do the clean up job. Perhaps that guy who doesn’t do the drinks would be better pleased to be on the clean up detail? :wink:

6

My ex and I were driving down a very quiet stretch of road very late one night (both bartenders, random Tuesday night at like four in the morning on the way home from work) and this guy who was walking on the sidewalk next to the road tried to jump in front of our truck. ('89 Ram Charger. It would’ve flattened him even at forty miles an hour.)

We both saw him walking on the sidewalk–there wasn’t anything else to look at at that hour–and we saw him turn around and look at the truck. We saw him pick up his pace. We saw him dart into the fucking street in front of the truck, looking at us the whole time.

Thank God nobody else was on the road; my ex swerved madly into the turning lane and just missed the fucker.

Creepiest thing I’ve ever fucking seen. We thought til the very last second that he was just some random, faintly creepy guy staring down a passing vehicle.

Until he jumped in front of our truck.

His intent couldn’t have been more obvious if he’d been holding a gun to his head.

We called 911 with our location and told them that somebody had tried to jump in front of our vehicle, but they didn’t sound interested.

I don’t know what happened to that guy.

My ex was so furious that he wanted to turn around and kick the guy’s ass. (He said if I hadn’t been in the car he would’ve held the guy down til the cops showed up. I believed him.) Who the fuck would do that to somebody else? You wanna kill yourself, grow a pair and shove a fucking pistol down your throat. Don’t make me see your splattered self all over my car. Don’t make ME your weapon of choice, you fucker.

I was surprised at how angry I was. How adrenalized, how freaked out.

I realize that anybody attempting suicide is probably so fucked in the head that they don’t give a rat’s ass about anybody else at that point, and in a classroom or a theoretical debate I can see why. I can see how they would actually prefer to traumatize somebody else, or a large group of other people, to call attention to their last desperate act. I get it, in a sterile “what-if” discussion.

But in practice??

Fuck you, asshole, for trying to give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

7

It’s funny (well, not ha ha, but something), when I was a suicidal teen, I didn’t do anything because I didn’t want to leave a body. I was horrified at the idea of someone having to haul my body away.

Maybe that was just an excuse. I don’t know.

8

Hahahahahaha. He’d have a fucken stroke. “If I’d wanted to be a coroner, I’d have opened a coronary store, wouldn’t I” I don’t want to cause any more grief than has already happened tonight…but it’s a bloody good idea!! I’ll save it for another time perhaps. :smiley:

I’m actually thinking of writing a brief note to the train-driver, saying something along the lines of ‘Thanks for keeping us updated during the delay, and I hope your nightmares pass quickly’ or summat to that effect. He did a wonderful job (if it had been me, I’d have been a blubbering mess over the loudspeaker) and he deserves kudos for it. In this city, people are very quick to whinge about the shortcomings in the public transport system, but there are times when the individuals in the system put in superhuman efforts…and IMHO, tonight was one of those times.

9

I think that this would be a really good thing to do. That guy has got to be suffering, now. Anything external, telling him that he did a good job tonight, would probably be worth it’s weight in gold for him, and his future mental health.

10

I fully agree, if you are going to take yourself out, it is exceedingly inconsiderate to force someone else to unwittingly/unwillingly be an accomplice.

However, not that I’ve ever seriously contemplated offing myself, but I have on occasion thought that death by train had certain factors in its favor. It is readily available in many areas, and would certainly be quick and certain.

I assume folks in the know could draw a distinction between suicides who are considerate of those who have to clean up their mess, and those who don’t care who might need to scrape brains off the walls.

11

It always amazes me how common suicide by subway train must be in Toronto. I’ve quite lost track of the times my travel has been disrupted by a “power outage situation” (Toronto Transit Commission euphemism for “we had to turn off the power on the tracks because it’s dangerous to scrape somebody off an electrified rail”), and it’s not like I spend my whole life on the subway.

I alway have the same reaction “I’m sorry your life was so miserable, but why are you messing up strangers with your departure?”

12

Suicide by other agent (train driver, cop, etc.) is an unbelievably selfish act. I guess if I had an ounce of compassion, I would say, “Oh, well, if they’re suicidal, they’re probably not in a mental place where they can properly consider the needs of others.” But instead I say, “Gee, what assholes.”

13

My favor ‘least inconvenience to others’ way of suicide: Pretend to take up fishing as a hobby. Buy some fishing gear. Buy a small boat/canoe. Buy a photographers vest. Go to nearest BIG body of water with the above stuff really early some day. Fill each pocket of the vest with stones. Zip vest securely shut. Paddle out a respectible distance from shore. Step out of boat, leaving most of fishing gear behind.
You will be dead, no one but fish and bottom dwellers will have to deal with corpse – and they’ll like it – and your friends and family can choose to believe it was just an accident.

Hey, just because your life sucks, no need to add more suckiness to other’s lives.

14

If I cared about other people, I’d have some kind of angry response. Someone is in such a state of confusion and self-loathing that they take their own life and you sit around whining about how selfish they are for ruining your evening.

But frankly, they’re dead and my sympathy isn’t going to help them, so carry on (you felt the wheels crunching the body through your seat? Ick!)

15

I knew someone who heard a jumper get hit by a subway train in Toronto. (It was at the other end of the platform, so he didn’t see it.) :: shudder ::

“Power outage situation”? So that’s what they call it? Man. I had no idea. I hear that on the anouncements every month, it seems.

16

No doubt. There are so many easy and fool-proof ways to kill yourself that don’t involve others. Scuba diving weight belt + 10 kilos of lead weights + boat = no mess, no hassle.

17

Yes, I’ve heard there are lots and lots of suicides by subway in Toronto. Every week? That’s what I heard somewhere. There certainly are a lot of ‘power outages’. I can’t find any stats by quick googling.

I went to school with a kid whose dad was a TTC driver. The dad had witnessed a spectacular decapitation by subway, and retired right after. Ugh.

18

It’s kind of scary how often this kind of thing happens. I remember hearing that in Halifax, there’s a jumper off of one of the bridges about once a month. I’m suddenly glad that I’ve yet to live in a place with regular rail travel :eek:

19

Drowning? Gadzooks, why don’t these people just smash a vein open with a cell phone?

Hoping for instant and painless release by many tons of steel vs. slowly and painfully choking in the ice cold depths of a lonely lake… Nah, screw your commute. Burning and drowning are right out.

You all brought it on yourselves when your governments got all anti-gun. Shotguns are messy, but can be quite solitary. (I only mention this because drowning and burning are two phobias of mine, and everyone expects me to make at least one firearm reference per day, right?)

20

Just over two years ago, I had a roommate who was an alcoholic and suffering from depression (never a good combination). He was in a great mood one morning, smiling and making jokes and I thought that he was possibly getting a handle on his problems. He owed me money for rent but said he was going to pick up a check and would be back later that afternoon. After he didn’t return that night or the next day, something told me to look in the paper. He had laid down on the tracks and killed himself that evening after going to a bar and getting drunk with the rent money. He left a nine-year-old little girl behind that adored him.

I still don’t know, to this day, whether I feel more anger toward him or just sadness. I hate that he put everyone through that much pain, all of us really - including that train conductor, who never had a chance to so much as slow down. (he picked the location very carefully, to ensure that the train would be coming around a curve at full speed). But I’ll never understand why he didn’t tell anyone that he was entertaining these thoughts so that he might have gotten some help. I still think of him often, even two years later and a train whistle still sends a chill through me.