I have only experienced one death on a train trip. I was on the bottom level of a Blue Mountains train and at the front of the carriage was a bunch of happy, drunken 20 somethings. One got up to go to the toilet but unfortunately forced open thecarriage doors rather than the toilet door and stepped out while the train was doing about 80ks. All of us up the front of the carriage saw his body fall past the first window.
The train was delayed for hours due to forensic requirements. His friends were almost in hysterics about the event - crying, hugging one another, making phone calls. But of course the rest of us just bitched and moaned about how the inconsiderate bastard had delayed our trip home. I was tempted to call out to his friends, “What a dickhead your mate was, eh?” but somehow resisted the urge.
Maybe you could find out the name of the suicide victim and send some abusive letters to his family. From my experience with suicides I am sure he was targetting the train driver and you - both would have been at the forefront of his mind.
A FOAF sealed his bathroom shut with duct tape, started a fire in a large dutch oven, and laid down in the bathtub with a wet towel over him. Death by asphyxiation/CO- fairly painless and clean.
I’m heavily involved in the rail community, so I know a bit about this. I’m NOT a train driver though, so I don’t claim to know a lot.
I’m also aware of the school of thought that says “When you’re that close to the edge, it’s no longer a matter of selfishness”, and I understand that…
…but…
…every train driver (motorman/engineer) that I’ve heard speak about suicides will always say one and the same thing, that runs like a thread through these discussions:
“When they jump, the last thing they ALWAYS do is LOOK YOU IN THE EYE as they fall”.
Watch this to see how it affects train drivers (no nasty stuff in video, promise). Fast forward to the 2:47 marker. Quite moving.
“I think why that one was so bad, was he was the same age as my son…”
If you consider it a terrible thing to involve complete strangers, what do you say to the effect that their departure has on their family?
I routinely ask suicidal people how they feel their family members would react to their death and many people do pause, as if they hadn’t considered it much.
Some people say things like “they will understand”
Others say things like “they don’t care about me at all and they will never notice”
Some say “I know my kids love me and need me, but…” or “I know my mother would be devastated, but…”
There’s a broad spectrum. At the end of the day, it’s clear that they are not processing everything with rational logical thought. No, it’s not right to do this to strangers, and it’s not right to do it to your own family, but after hearing hundreds of people explain to me why they want to end their lives, I personally find it hard to be overly judgmental of someone who does end their life. Nevertheless, the consequences of their actions are real and cannot be undone. :(.
While I do have just a bit of sympathy for the suicides - they might not even be thinking of the effect their messy death will have on others and just be seeking a quick certain death - I wish I believed in hell for the ones who commit suicide by stupid.
Hey! A train is cominig! I think I’ll try to outrun it!
A guy I used to know was an engineer for a railway. A woman in her 40’s with her 20-somthing daughter in the car decided to outrun him when he was pulling about 75 loaded gravel hoppers. At around dusk. By the time he saw her there was no possible way to stop. I met him about 5 years after the accident and he still had nightmares about seeing the girl screaming and trying to climb over her mother to the other side of the car.
Stupid twunt. Killed yourself - good riddance. Nice job taking your daughter with you, bitch. But you left a survivor who didn’t even know your stupid ass and who will never forget you.
If the suicide wanted maximum exposure in death, that seems to have been a bust. Haven’t find any online coverage of the incident so far, apart from this thread.
My mom thought about suicide the whole time I was growing up (I didn’t know it) and said she didn’t slit her wrists in the bathtub because that would have left a mess for Pop and us kids to clean up. I thought, that would have been our responsibility? Really?
Eh, it happens all the time. The tube has so many outages for pointless reasons that the people who try to keep it running want to make absolutely sure the passengers know that this time its someone else’s fault. And indeed, whenever that announcement comes on a whole platform full of commuters will all mutter to themselves “inconsiderate bloody sod, why couldn’t they just hang themselves or something” rather than the usual “my god, this lot couldn’t run a bath never mind a tube network”.
Occasionally you get “a person taken ill on a train” which gets a mix of “ah well, what can you do” and “if you’re unhealthy you should avoid rush hour on, you idiot”.
I realize that this isn’t trains or subways, but there’s the people who live and work just under the Aurora bridge here. Condos, houseboats, offices, what have you.
It’s high, it’s got easy pedestrian access without the curved fence thingers on a lot of other bridges. Every so often, they’ll see/hear someone go splat, or the emergency services arriving to take care of the jumper’s mortal remains. Or both. :eek: It’s had a pretty big effect on the folks. Nearly 50 people have successfully killed themselves off the bridge in the last decade alone.
As a result, the bridge’s neighbors have set up a group to try and get the barriers put up, but money and politics are pretty big issues they need to get around.
There was a poster on alt.fan.suicide who claimed to have attempted Suicide-By-Train, and failed. Both of his legs were severed (too high up for prosthetics) and his right arm was badly damaged and rendered useless. His biggest gripe was that the incident left him physically unable to kill himself by other means (I guess drugs & guns were unavailable to him) and he was cursed to live out the rest of his natural life in much worse shape than before he tried to kill himself.
Another man was profiled on the Discovery Health channel – he was hit by a train, which severed his left arm and destroyed his right hand. (Doctors successfully attached his left hand to his right arm.) His official story was that his foot got “stuck on the tracks” – but I suspect his motives were more suicidal in nature. (For one thing, when the police found him, he begged them to kill him…and if his foot got stuck, why were his legs undamaged??) In any case, he seemed pretty happy to be alive – it happens sometimes.
It’s had a pretty big effect on the folks. Nearly 50 people have successfully killed themselves off the bridge in the last decade alone.