[Article] One person commits suicide under a train every month

One person commits suicide under a train every month
From:The Irish Independent
Monday, 6th November, 2006

AT least one person a month is committing suicide by throwing themselves in front of a moving train.

The situation has now become so serious that drivers are being warned by Iarnrod Eireann that, although remote, the possibility exists that they may be involved in a fatal collision during their career.

Some drivers involved have been so traumatised that they have had to be reassigned to new tasks - and some are so badly affected that they cannot return to work at all.

"If you train to be a driver now, you're told how to handle it in pre-incident training," an Iarnrod Eireann spokesman said.

"It's to make people aware that, unfortunately, it is something our drivers experience. We try to arrive at a situation where the driver would be comfortable returning to work.

"Sometimes drivers cannot return. There is a facility where people can come back in a different role."

A driver who was involved in an incident late last year said he would not accept that being involved in a fatality should be seen as an occupational hazard.

The man, who has been a driver for Iarnrod Eireann for 17 years, said he was out of work for almost six months after the incident and had to receive counselling. His life changed on December 14 last year when a man lay down in front of his oncoming train heading from Dublin to Belfast at Harmonstown station, in the north of the capital.

"A man lay down in front of me," he told the Irish Independent. "I was doing 60mph and there was nothing I could do. It's a heavy train and impossible to stop. I had about six seconds from when I saw him to the impact.

"Myself and the gardai shut down the line. I went into Connolly Station, someone took my car, and I went straight home.

"I went to my GP the next day and went out on sick leave. Within two weeks (of the incident) you see the medical department and arrange a visit to see a counsellor. It's open-ended, so I can call the counsellor at any time."

Drivers who do return to work spend up to a month travelling in the cab with another driver, he said. "I've known drivers who've never come back and others who are back in a couple of months."

He said, however, that he could not work in a job where hitting someone was a risk one had to accept.

"I'm driving 17 years and was never told it could happen to me. I know it happens, but if it gets to the stage that this was seen as part of the job, I would have to consider my position.

"I don't think anyone should be told they might kill someone as part of the job. The driver doesn't kill anyone, the person uses them to die.

Drivers say the suicides spike at Christmas time and during school and college exams. Iarnrod Eireann said about 11 people a year died on its network.

Paul Melia