'Tragic Incidents' on rail line

XPS_Zero

Apologies for the length of this but it's a complex and serious topic and the more I sat thinking the more I felt the need to share some of this, and this is not the comments section of the journal, I assume people with a bit more RAM in their brains inhabit this zone and are not the clapping seals one would find over there.

This ^ is the euphemism used to avoid the word suicide, I use it here just the same, understanding the reasons why it's used.

I don't know if we are seeing a lot more of these lately, if that's just my perception, but it seems we are. I did start a thread on this a good year ago it was more from the perspective of trying to talk to people who might be considering this as a method to reconsider. Here I am wondering more about the protocols when this happens, giving some advice for those affected (drivers) and some general advice from experience, and asking if anyone knows:

1. [Support for Passengers].
Is there any support offered to the passengers who may see something gruesome? Counseling and psych services can vary depending if you just need someone to talk to (€60+) to work through it or if you actually need medical treatment/therapy (€100-150/80). I would imagine in most cases given the logistics passengers would not need this as often but I am wondering if IE would provide funding for that in isolated cases?

2. [Support for the driver/crew?].
What is the support structure for the driver in question? Is he/she entitled to medical services that may not be on the public system to be paid for? Do they get time off work?
It's very possible, in a kind of sick irony, that the driver who witnesses a suicide could develop PTSD. It's thought of as a kind of thing you only get from violence like being beaten severely or from war but it happens with any traumatic event where danger is present. Flashbacks, nightmares, heightened anxiety. Early help where they are encouraged to talk about this is critical in preventing PTSD. I know a lot of IE staff read these boards even if they don't post, so if you do know any driver that has been in this situation
tell them to talk about it with someone early on.

Suppressing it, shoving it down inside yourself and trying not to think about it will backfire. You might indeed forget about it then a few months later you'll suddenly and completely lose it with someone for no reason in a way that's nothing like your regular personality. Your subconscious was thinking about it all along, you were dreaming about it in dreams you've forgotten. You have to face it and talk about it. Don't let it consume you, don't obsess about it. While you are still in the period where you're dealing with it in the aftermath, but doing something not related (ie not talking about it with someone or thinking about it yourself) file it away in a box in your mind and think 'ill deal with that later'. Later, talk it out (ideally with a professional but a close friend you trust or spouse can be just as good). Talk it out, deal with it and face it up front. You might feel an odd need to just cry at random times for a while, go be by yourself (or with someone you trust) and let that happen, don't shove it away. Then lock the box, and toss it in the sea. If you try to shove it into the box and toss it into the sea without facing it first that lid will never stay shut again. It will do a Micheal Myers and keep coming back in different ways later (even ways that seem unrelated and you won't realize it) unless you face it and deal with it.

3. [Logistics].
When this happens the two track system is blocked up, a body can only be moved to save a life, if you know the persons dead you're not allowed touch them until detectives, crime scene team etc arrive.
-What would they do for people stuck on a train in this situation? Would they leave them there or try to disembark them and bus them out?
-They have this odd habit of reassigning the Enterprise to Drougheda and having a feeder bus meet the train there (they do this with line works too). This seems to just make the journey longer would it not make more sense to just get BE to put on an extra X1 service or get them to accept IE tickets so people can get there directly?

4. [Accidents].
Having been around the Howth Junction stop I'm quite worried about another type of tragic incident - death by accident. I see kids hop or get around easy to bypass fences all the time there and walk straight onto the tracks without even bothering to look left or right, an Enterprise or out of service ICR or in service Commuter would turn them into pancake on the track in seconds, is there any effort underway to repair this area and make it harder to access? If they had to use the main entrance they'd probably just keep going up the steps rather than risk walking on the line.

5. [Effectiveness of antisuicide signs].
Ive seen the antisuicide signs and this is just a matter of opinion but I think they're really ineffective. As someone who was not only suicidal but made two attempts I found the entire approach of the Samaratins infuriating and annoying, but everyone in Irish officaldom seems to think they are the go-to people for this - they're not. The reason I could not stand their approach was they don't do advice they just listen. Now I'm not knocking that, sometimes people just need to ''vent'' as they say and that alone can be good therapy but if someone has reached the point where they are gonna toss themselves in front of a train they need solutions not talking to someone barred by the rules from helping them in any pragmatic way.
Even if they were allowed offer soloutions you won't be able to develop them over a phone convo anyway, solving depression takes time you need to get to the psycological roots of what triggered it and then work out goals and slowly restructure your life. I think the idea is "if we get them talking they calm down and we might have saved them". I get that, and yes, if they dial that number you'll probably be able to save them just by getting them talking to someone who (unlike most of the people they know) is not abusing them. But I think the signs are ineffective in doing that.

I get why they have the rule on not offering advice: their people are not counselors, not psychiatrists and thus not trained to talk to someone suicidal which (if you are acting in an official capacity) does require some knowledge and skill, you'll hear lay people often say stupid things like "it's selfish" or "people who use pills don't mean it, if you meant it you'd use a razor blade in the bath tub" and "people who talk about it don't end up doing it", so I can see where the concern would be that they'd make a balls of it without proper training.

However in this case I think they need a different approach. An ad / message board system with some marketing skill might make more sense (though don't hire a marketing firm to do it, get voluntary submissions for free, dirty secret of the marketing industry is that they are really bad at PR and marketing, no really, they are) The best way would be to hurry Slaintecare up (it's coming in slow phases instead) and get us our Irish NHS that includes free up front mental healthcare up and running. Thankfully Slaintecare/Universal Healthcare has all party support (even FG) so we will get there.
ATM costs lock 70% of the population away from serious mental healthcare.

At the problem areas on the rail line I think messages would work way better than just a number.

Nobody who has ever committed suicide has wanted to die, the survival instinct is very very strong, we only do suicide when our pain exceeds our ability to cope with it/solve it, we don't WANT to die, we wanna live but decide on suicide because it's all about quality of life and survival alone is not enough, living in constant agony is not worth it. My advice dealing with anyone suicidal would be to cling on to that part of the survival mechanism still functional, hope that it can be sorted out. That's where these little ads would be more useful, a MESSAGE aimed at that mechanism not a number to people who are banned from helping you solve your problems - something along the lines of "are you sure? are you sure you tried EVERYTHING? why not try some more first?". Designing these is something I'd give my right arm to work on, I really think we could make an impact with some clever well thought out ones. We even know exactly (from history) what stations to put them at. Even if it made one person hesitate long enough to watch that Enterprise or ICR zoom by and think "f---k it, I'll try one more year full throttle, you never know"


[My wandering thoughts on suicide]
I've been sitting here at home feeling really gut wrenching sadness ever since I heard what happened at Portmarnock a while ago (I'm making the assumption this was not an accident, but even if it was an accident these thoughts hit me every time I hear of a suicide lately), I was so lost in thought it got dark around me. Most people can shake their heads think it's horrible then go on.
I'm finding it harder to do that, even though it's a total stranger. I feel it. I know almost exactly what kind of thoughts were going through their head. That sense of frustration where you wanna keep going, you want normality so badly but you don't think it's ever going to happen, so you ask yourself do I keep going like this in nearly constant pain or do I end this now? You hit a point of peak despair where you just lose all your faith in a good outcome.

The calculation is oddly similar to that of a person dying from an incurable but painful condition and they chose the euthanasia option, live on in certain agony or die on my terms, sparing myself the pain? The difference being of course you can't cure that person you CAN cure mental illness (or at minimum, depending on the condition make it manageable enough to have a normal life). So the decision making in the latter case is not a rational one, but you think it is, you think you've calculated properly that there is no other way of sorting things out - and thats the tragedy thats burning me here, knowing it's possible to sort this stuff out, and that someone was taken from us before that could happen. Knowing this can be sorted it burns me up thinking about a life lost needlessly.

You can't imagine the difference when you 'cure' (a phrase oncologists and psychatrists both hate) depression. Imagine being in a log cabin with no electricity, howling ice cold winds blowing through cracks in the wood, no heat, darkness from the lights not being on, nobody else there, you're alone there even though you can see in the far distance lights on in other cabins where dinner parties are going on and everyone looks to be enjoying themselves while you shiver. You open the back door and you're on a beach in the tropics with a beach party going on around you, booze in buckets of ice, bbqs fired up, beautiful people playing vollyball. You think at first something must be wrong this contrast is too good...something horrible is about to happen...i feel good...this is not normal there is something I'm not thinking about something bad that's happening I'm forgetting and it's going to hit me any second...then it turns out no it's just normal, oh you'll feel crap again, have crap days, but the kind of things that enrage other people about their days you think of as minor inconveniences, your pain threshold is so much higher now. But when you do have a really good time, it's the beach party. Your pain threshold is higher but you also enjoy the good aspects more than normal people, contrast contrast contrast.
Then you remember this almost didn't happen, I thought this couldn't happen so I was gonna end it - I'd be ashes now instead of being here feeling this, I'd not be feeling anything at all because there would be no me. You kept going and kept trying more out of a desire to eliminate all options and be sure when you pulled the plug rather than cos you actually thought things might get better...but they did.

The most depressing lesson I learned during my recovery was that people are far more likley to judge than understand. Show some compassion to friends and family members who seem to not be themselves anymore, don't, as many Irish people seem to do to my horror, assume (if it's a big change not run of the mill stuff) their emotional changes are just "them being bold" (kids having outbursts in sec school say), or them being an a---hole, don't tell them things like "pull the finger out and cop yourself on". Ask them what's wrong, get a handle on what's going on with them. If it seems really complex and serious urge them to get some help.

I don't mean to sound like an emo kid from South Park here but one of the reasons it boils my blood to hear people say "it's selfish" is that I thought I was doing the people around me a favor by getting out of their way and no longer causing them hassle. Even showing them there is someone who cares how they are doing will make a difference, if you don't have a full convo with them about what's going on but just show them some empathy that can be enough. I literally knew nobody would miss me. Oh I thought they'd go through the motions, but once my ashes were scattered I thought they'd forget about it and not think of me again. Don't laugh at their problems, remember it's not about how serious the problem is it's about the coping mechanisms they don't have that you do (and there is no way they'll tell you what the REAL things going on are until much later anyway, they'll test your reaction with a shallower dip into whats wrong).

Another common landmine people step on in this area is, if the person has been depressed a while and it's dragging on losing your temper with them and doing the "the rest of us have problems too" speech. You need to understand the difference between every day problems and the kind of intense crippling devastation going on in the head of someone with a mental illness. I'm of the opinion that concern for peoples feelings (society level wise not on an individual level where empathy still lacks) has gone too far in the opposite direction and our generation (millenials) go to glass far too easily, so terms like 'depressed' etc get tossed around too easy we can't let it lose it's meaning

Making light of what's wrong with them will not make them "pull the finger out" or "snap out of it" it will push them closer to the edge by telling them nobody around them gives a f---k and they find you annoying and draining to be around.

If you do try to help someone keep in mind it can be emotionally draining being a persons sole crutch so encourage them to get professional help if it's really bad or at least reach other to a second friend too.

If you are worried someone is on actually on the edge the best move you can make is to cling to the part of the survival instinct still working and ask them if they've tried everything, why not take longer to try sort it out? Remind them they're distressed and depressed so not thinking as clearly as they would be normally, and others who are not sick could look at their situation and think of ways out they havn't thought of.




I'm really sorry about rambling, I guess I'm hoping some of what I experienced will reach someone out there or a friend of someone and help them in some way rather than it being locked inside my head uselessly.

I never intended this to be so long, I just sat here sad thinking about this poor person and wishing I could have been on that platform to rugby tackle them away from the edge and tell them as we lay crumbled on the floor 'I don't even know you and I care if you die, i've been lost in the same darkness and i know the way out, let me show you'.

Victor

For clarity, some of these incidents are misadventure and/or intoxication. I saw a guy walking on the tracks at Sandymount one day about 10 years ago. I mentioned it to the ticket seller who went out to get the the guy to get off the tracks, only for him to be pulled on to the tracks by the trespasser. Maybe the trespasser was a coke head, but he didn't seem to be anything else.

It is generally poor form to declare the underlying cause of the incident on the day.

chakademus

Hey op, don't know anything about the train incident but I thought your post was interesting and brilliant. Hope you're feeling well at the moment.

Stephen15

Is the reason why IE actively support mental health charities by having staff wearing those green ribbons and on their Twitter page to prevent railway suicides?

Hilly Bill

There is support available for both passengers who witnessed it like what happend in Skerries last year and staff.
The signs are there to let you know that there is someone to talk to if you need it.
The passengers on the affected train will be held onboard until Irish rail get the nod from the guards that's its OK to let them off.
Irish rail would like to get the line back open as soon as possible but they can't until the guards give them the all clear.

Hilly Bill

Stephen15 wrote: »

Is the reason why IE actively support mental health charities by having staff wearing those green ribbons and on their Twitter page to prevent railway suicides?

Not as such. May is mental health awareness month an IR just promote it.

Stephen15

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Not as such. May is mental health awareness month an IR just promote it.

Yeah but I find it ironic that IE seem to be the only CIE company that promote it

magicbastarder

re the anti-suicide signs/ads - i do recall hearing that these can actually increase suicide. that they normalise it from something which no one would consider, and that seeing multiple ads regarding suicide can continue to actually reinforce it as an option.
it's not a topic i have any expertise on, though.

i've heard one or two claims about IR and their procedures around suicide, but they're just pub talk to i'm not going to repeat them here as they're probably speculation at best. would be interesting to hear if any are true though.

tabbey

magicbastarder wrote: »

re the anti-suicide signs/ads - i do recall hearing that these can actually increase suicide. that they normalise it from something which no one would consider, and that seeing multiple ads regarding suicide can continue to actually reinforce it as an option.

I think you have a valid point and often thought the same.

When I worked on London Underground nearly forty years ago, chalk blackboards were used to advise passengers of service disruption, due to an incident.

The travelling public generally perceived this to be a suicide. One day at lunchtime, there were three incidents in less than an hour, within a few miles on the Central Line. I had no doubt at the time, that the first contributed to the second and so on.
None of us know what problems were being endured by any number of people depending on the service to get to a date, an interview or any other appointment, critical to their lives. When some of these are already vulnerable, a further incident becomes almost inevitable.

Since then, having worked for thirty years in the Mental Health services before retiring, I see these issues from a different perspective. I met one train driver who never worked again after experiencing such an incident, utterly powerless to stop when a person stepped in front of him. I also met many people who died by suicide, at least one under a train. When I was young one of my favourite walks was along Bray Head. Following the deaths of a couple in a relationship, from that very cliff, (one went first, the other some weeks later), this walk was painful, even thirty years later, it is still not quite the same.

If we want to reduce this tragedy, we need to address the causes of suicide. Some die because they are tormented by their mental illness and seek the ultimate cure, but most die because they are victims of circumstances, many inflicted by society. The housing/ homeless scandal is especially due to the indifference of society to the overpriced housing and hoarding for the benefit of speculators. Increasing inequality should also spur the people to demand change. Unfortunately the typical Irish person says "I am all right, Jack", and walks on, oblivious to the morally wrong features of our community.

Jamie2k9

The way guards investigate needs to be changed or improved like happens elsewhere. With such detailed CCTV available on demand now, it shouldn't take long to determine if any crime was committed which is why I understand guards take so long but appears to be slowing improving.

The issue is RSC (or whatever regulator) says passengers cannot see the body and this includes animals so they cannot be let off a train line side until its either removed, covered or a route that means people cannot see it which is also why both lines close even if a second track is clear. Train also needs to be cleaned (front) as well.

While IE do a good job promoting it, I'm not sure there has been a major change year on year in fatalities but it costs nothing to promote. The DART seems to be a major problem of late.

IE 222

Obviously the best chance of stopping this from happening is getting people to seek advise and help about their feelings but maybe a campaign or video of sorts explaining and telling from first handed experiences the aftermath these incidents have on many. Maybe hearing from the drivers, emergency services, witnesses and families affected by such deaths or a survivor of been hit by train who had an unsuccessful attempt or a genuine accident could tell just how horrific and life changing the injuries are might help reduce the numbers.

Maybe given a more in-depth idea into the graphic nature of the event of how a body is usually retrieve, what witnesses and drivers actually see, the fact trains need to be scrubbed cleaned of body parts and I'm sure in many cases an open casket isn't possible such is the impact. Better knowledge of how brutal this is may make some to think twice.