Suicide & Accident by Train Strike

XPS_Zero

Given what happened yesterday, I have some questions and observations.

Yesterday there was a report of someone struck by the Enterprise train, no word on their condition but it was at Skerries.


, I'm curious to see if anyone knows:

• How often does this happen (re suicide)
• How often does it happen by accident (falling, or running across the track)
• How often it's fatal
• Are there particular spots where it tends to happen

I don't think they realize how fast a train going 120km/h can be on top of you even if it's far in the distance, but what's really scared me is seeing people doing it without even looking. One time at Bray I saw this gothy kid staring bolt ahead mind a million miles away, ear muff earphones on, pushing the gates aside and just walking through...but without looking left or right, he could have been mashed over by a Rosslaaire train.

I have to wonder how many other people are doing this.


The only time I've seen anyone hit was in Shankill when the person thankfully jumped too far and was only clipped by the DART (which wasn't going fast enough to kill him by impact, so instead of a quick bang to the head followed by permanent unconsciousness, he would have had a limb going under the wheels and either have to do an amputation or slowly bleed out in a very unpleasant death.


A lot of people, not having been actively suicidal themselves don't understand how anyone could do it. By that I mean not that they've thought about it vaguely (as most have at one point) but people who've come up with a plan and were close to or tried to implement it, it seems depression is being tossed around to describe what ought to be considered normal blues by our "snowflake generation" (culminating in the rather absurd case of that stupid kid claiming he got PTSD from being dropped from a football team an argument that made my blood boil because it robs credibility from serious mental health conditions), I mean the real thing, where you can't work, don't socialize, stop eating right, where showing and shaving are a ''meh''...how can they..well all I can say is the two most powerful drives you have, the sex drive and survival instinct, are so strong they can override everything else, so think about how much pain someone has to be in before those two central instincts are not reduced but totally DE-activated. Some probably consider it a quick death, though like downing 200 paracetamol, many discover (too late) that it's often not.


I'd urge anyone pondering doing it to think of all the people who have been murdered, all the people dying now of various fatal illnesses, think of their last moments and how much they want to live, then make a plan to sort things out, give it another year, and fire on all cylinders trying it, you can always go later, nothing says it has to be now. But if you really think you can't cope with whats going on, don't use a technique where someone who knows and cares about you like friends or family will find you, because that image is never ever going to leave them, they're going to see it in their nightmares for the rest of their own lives, and torture themselves with questions thinking what they should have done to help you, telling themselves they failed.



People call suicide selfish because they often don't know the mindset of a suicidal person is that by pulling the plug you're doing the people around you a favor, and even though you genuinely believe this its probably not true in your situation, nobody wishes death upon a friend or family member even if they don't like them, and they definitely don't feel relief when you're gone, they feel guilt, confusion, sadness, and even when they move on as they'll have to, a sense of cold horror will remain in the back of their mind.

...and they will eventually move on. They'll clean up your broken corpse and the world will keep on rotating, that's the sad reality. Then you'll eventually be forgotten. Whereas if you stayed and put up a fight you could have done anything.


Doing it jumping in front of a train is no better than hanging yourself in your bedroom, the driver might be a stranger, but he's still a human being just like you. He has kids, he has brothers and sisters, a wife or husband. When his kids are teenagers and start going through dark phases he's going to be constantly worrying if they are depressed torturing himself with worry that one of them might do what you did. He'll be seeing warning signs everywhere. You might give him (real) PTSD, imagine him tortured with flashbacks of the impact, jumping every time someone touches his arm or puts their hand on his shoulder, he'll be seeing suicide warning signs from his own kids, everywhere. He'll be looking ahead to every platform watching everyone thinking it's gonna happen again (and he'll be passing 20+ platforms a day) He's gonna ask himself over and over if he'd been looking more carefully and hit the emergency brake a few seconds faster could he have saved you. Don't let your suicide happen at all but if it has to, don't do collateral damage. After you've passed into nothingness or some other plain of existence he'll still be alive, heart pumping, brain firing, feeling pain, that you caused, and continue to cause, from beyond the grave.

Victor

XPS_Zero wrote: »

[*]How often does this happen (re suicide)

Approximately 10 trespassers (anyone on the track who isn't mean to tbe there) die on the Irish Rail network per year. This includes suicides, persons with criminal intent, risk takers and other people who are intoxicated (and perhaps don't know where they are). At level crossings, perhaps 1 person dies per year. In contrast it has been decades since anyone has been killed in a train crash, although I recollect one death of someone who put their head out a window on a moving train.

[*]How often does it happen by accident (falling, or running across the track)

I'm not sure if the numbers are published separately. Falls tend to be at platforms and tend to be serious injuries (amputations, crush injuries) as opposed to deaths.

[*]How often it's fatal

Being hit by a train would often be fatal, but it's not 100% - irresistible force -v- flimsy human.

[*]Are there particular spots where it tends to happen

Somewhat in proportion to public access to the railway, so Dublin area in particular. Mayo has a particular problem with level crossing incidents.

Losty Dublin

A few years ago an RPSI train was running late and held at Athy to be bypassed by a Waterford service. Seconds later a man stepped out in front of the service train and that was that. In one sense it was fortunate he chose that time; it would have been a lot more gruesome had it have been 461. Even so it wasn't pleasant for all concerned, whatever his worldly woes were.

magicbastarder

XPS_Zero wrote: »

I'd urge anyone pondering doing it to think of all the people who have been murdered, all the people dying now of various fatal illnesses, think of their last moments and how much they want to live, then make a plan to sort things out, give it another year, and fire on all cylinders trying it, you can always go later, nothing says it has to be now.

with all the best will in the world, i don't think anyone contemplating suicide will be in a place where a post like the above would reach them.

Jamie2k9

Approximately 10 trespassers (anyone on the track who isn't mean to tbe there) die on the Irish Rail network per year. This includes suicides, persons with criminal intent, risk takers and other people who are intoxicated (and perhaps don't know where they are). At level crossings, perhaps 1 person dies per year. In contrast it has been decades since anyone has been killed in a train crash, although I recollect one death of someone who put their head out a window on a moving train.

Is that an updated figure, I know it's approx but think it's improved in recent years. So far this year think this is the third.

Are there particular spots where it tends to happen

The sun tends to bring a lot of trespassers out, on a trip on Easter Monday no fewer than 3 person and a dog on a line at different locations.

LXFlyer

There are notices on platforms in many stations across Britain now with the Samaritans' phone number in an effort to perhaps dissuade people, and I believe it is being trialled here too.

jimmycrackcorm

Being from Donegal I don't use trains very often but I remember being in awe at a London station watching a train pass through at an absolutely incredible speed, and thinking then that I understood why people would chose them as a suicide mechanism.

Jamie2k9

lxflyer wrote: »

There are notices on platforms in many stations across Britain now with the Samaritans' phone number in an effort to perhaps dissuade people, and I believe it is being trialled here too.

Been here for 2 maybe 2.5 years now. On bridges as well.

prinzeugen

Had some dealings in the UK. Happens regularly there.

I am not going to post details but I know of people that have survived being clipped by a 110mph train and others that have died after coming in contact with a 5 mph train.

Suicide is something that is getting some long overdue attention here so hopefully the rates on Irish Rail will go down.

I noticed the difference in the tweets also. Passengers stuck were calm, patient and even asking if the driver was OK.

In the UK, especially around London, there would be some very nasty tweets by people that think they are important.

Ferrari3600

"These aren't accidents, they're throwing themselves into the road! Throwing themselves into the road gladly to escape all this hideousness!"

prinzeugen

Ferrari3600 wrote: »

"These aren't accidents, they're throwing themselves into the road! Throwing themselves into the road gladly to escape all this hideousness!"

We don't know. It may have been someone taking a shortcut.

Have some respect!

coylemj

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Been here for 2 maybe 2.5 years now. On bridges as well.

+1 saw the Samaritans' signs a couple of years ago at each end of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol which runs over the railway line and the river Avon. There is a high wire fence along the sides of the bridge, clearly to deter the sort of activity we're talking about but there's no barriers at all at each end of the bridge.

magicbastarder

my wife was once on a train in front of which some poor soul lay on the tracks as a suicide attempt. fortunately for her, she lay down the middle of the tracks, instead of across the tracks, and the train passed over her without causing injury. the driver had to be changed though.

Subacio

Ferrari3600 wrote: »

"These aren't accidents, they're throwing themselves into the road! Throwing themselves into the road gladly to escape all this hideousness!"

You terrible c**t.

magicbastarder

lest there be any confusion, that's a quote from withnail & i.

Hilly Bill

prinzeugen wrote: »

We don't know. It may have been someone taking a shortcut.

Have some respect!

Latest one wasnt an accident.

LuckyLloyd

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Being from Donegal I don't use trains very often but I remember being in awe at a London station watching a train pass through at an absolutely incredible speed, and thinking then that I understood why people would chose them as a suicide mechanism.

I was awaiting a train early in the morning at Harringay in North London last month as part of a work trip and was struck by the very same thing - services obviously travelling to the North of England hurtling through a small station on a middle non platform line at significant speed. If you were off a desperate mindset it would be a relatively trivial task to hop off the platform and get in front of it in a matter of seconds.

Stephen15

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Been here for 2 maybe 2.5 years now. On bridges as well.

Not railway related but have seen them aswell on life rings

murphaph

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I was awaiting a train early in the morning at Harringay in North London last month as part of a work trip and was struck by the very same thing - services obviously travelling to the North of England hurtling through a small station on a middle non platform line at significant speed. If you were off a desperate mindset it would be a relatively trivial task to hop off the platform and get in front of it in a matter of seconds.

My local station is on the Berlin-Hamburg ICE route, just outside Berlin, but trains are cleared for 200 km/h running. Our station has passing loops along the platforms as ICE trains pass the regional and freight services here, so the ICE trains are a few feet further out from the platforms but on the way into the city there are 3 stations where the ICEs pass through along the platform at 200 km/h. Sadly people do take their own lives along there at least a couple of times a year. We've had a police helicopter up a few times doing laps along the track looking for suicidal people after they may have contacted the Samaritans etc. and mentioned their location and state of mind. Trains run slowly when the police are doing this.