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It was a wild and woolly weekend, mostly great fun…until today’s trip home, when this happened. Yes, that’s the train I was on. A very sad situation (still not sure if it was accident or suicide.) And I got home to discover that a friend had committed suicide last night.
So some of the bloom was off the rose, so to speak….but the A-Kon memories are all good. I had time with old friends, made some new ones, and signed a few books. First load of laundry is done, and I’m leaving the other for tomorrow morning. I went into the convention with my three pairs of hand-knit socks, and by judicious washing (I took my own towel for drying them, so they wouldn’t “bleed” on hotel white towels) got through just fine.
Back to work on various fronts tomorrow…starting with a necessary visit to a government bureaucracy and then straight into my editor’s notes on Limits of Power.
Comment by Moira — June 4, 2012 @ 9:09 pm
Oh wow – sorry that happened (for the man who was killed, of course, but also for everyone on the train). That’s a sad way to end a trip.
Good to hear the socks survived and thrived on their first foray into the larger world!
Comment by Annabel (Mrs Redboots) — June 5, 2012 @ 2:08 am
Oh that is so sad; I’m so sorry, especially for the loss of your friend. I lost a friend that way at Christmas, and I’m still miserable when I think about him.
Comment by pjm — June 5, 2012 @ 2:24 am
It is awful when somebody chooses to take their own life. In a train suicide I always feel for the driver, who feels responsible even though no possible action could have saved the person killed. I believe in our Victorian system most drivers will be in such a situation at least once in their careers.
Comment by Richard — June 5, 2012 @ 4:25 am
Both suicides and accidents (when people take short cuts across the tracks – I hear males in their teens and 20s risk it most) happen in front of UK trains too. On some lines, there are also electrocutions. From what I hear, our police nowadays – it wasn’t always so – close the line for a lot longer than two hours.
What you can never know for sure, Elizabeth, is how many suicides your life and work may have helped prevent.
Comment by Richard — June 5, 2012 @ 6:34 am
Elizabeth, I think it right to counter-balance your friend’s tragedy with a celebration. While you were at A-Kon, I spent Sunday afternoon watching (from home, on television) the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant. In the BBC coverage you can get from the internet there is a example it would be hard to beat of a small choir (Royal College of Music Chamber Choir) giving of its best in adverse conditions. Go to 1hr:15 in the highlights http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jmp4y/The_Queens_Diamond_Jubilee_The_Diamond_Jubilee_Thames_Pageant_Highlights/, or about 4hrs:20 in the full http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jmp4t/The_Queens_Diamond_Jubilee_The_Diamond_Jubilee_Thames_Pageant_The_Diamond_Jubilee_Thames_Pageant/ . They should be available until the coming Sunday afternoon and morning respectively (your time).
If you’ve time for nothing else, stay with the highlights program through to the end credits for some good images from the event. When we see the choir it hasn’t been raining for the whole of their way downriver, only the last hour and a half. From the commentary most of the pieces performed from their boat were purely orchestral, so the singers should have had chances to wait inside, but even if they did their appearance still tells its own story.
Comment by elizabeth — June 5, 2012 @ 7:16 am
I hope Amtrak provides some counseling for engineers whose trains are the instrument of a death. They can’t prevent it, and they’re up front where they see it coming, but too late. It must be worst for them. The passengers don’t see it (having no forward view) until after (if at all.) At least, Fort Worth is one of the places where they change engine crew, and that was (as it happened) only about 20 minutes away from the accident site, so the engineer didn’t have to continue to San Antonio.
How long the line is closed depends (apparently) on where and when and how it happened, and is under the control of local law enforcement. It may be (I’m only guessing here) that the proximity to the crew-changing station is what encouraged them to let us go on after two hours. Though really–I don’t see what more could be learned by keeping the train there longer. And this is a long-distance train–runs from Chicago to San Antonio(1300 miles) and some of its cars are then switched off to the Sunset Limited, which goes between New Orleans and Los Angeles…westbound, the through-passengers are facing another 1400+ miles. It also connects with a train going to Oklahoma City in Fort Worth. So I’m sure there’s some pressure to let this train meet the others in time for passengers (or entire cars) to make the transfer. There’s only one train a day. (And, for the Sunset Limited, the eastbound and westbound run on alternate days.)
The writer-brain goes into overdrive during any emergency situation, and is only held down by having actual responsibility in those cases.
Thus, while I was still doing EMS work, I had no trouble at all concentrating on the immediate needs of those I cared for. Work to be done–do it until it’s done–then let writer-brain out of its box. But when I have no responsibilities, then writer-brain is right there, up front, eyes alert, tongue hanging out (so to speak) eager to sop up every detail for later use. How many police cars? How many ambulances? Who are the guys in orange vests? Who are the guys in green vests? Why are these two staring fixedly at the track under the car I’m in (one can guess, but writer-mind wants to know.) Who are the two people with big-lensed cameras set up on tripods way over there? (I didn’t see a news van…though there was an obvious news helicopter circling overhead.) Who are the two men in shirts and ties walking together back down the tracks, one a good eight inches taller than the other? The short one, in a blue shirt and suspenders, is the only person out there in the hot afternoon wearing a hat. Why?
Writer-mind is a voracious, vampiric predator, wanting to rip every detail, suck every emotional nuance, from anything that might be story-fodder later (and it thinks everything is story-fodder.)
Comment by KarenH — June 5, 2012 @ 1:57 pm
I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I have a child who shot himself. He shot himself in the hand, but it could have been his head. He does suffer from depression, so I have learned a few things along the way. And having read her essay on Moonscape, I know Elizabeth has suffered from depression. So I may be “preaching to the choir” here.
If anyone is dealing with a loved one who suffers from mental illness, I highly recommend NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), if you already haven’t found it. They have regular support group meetings and also offer classes. One is a 12 week class, meeting at night once a week. It helped me greatly when I was dealing with the aftermath of the above injury.
Also, mental illness can have physical causes. If someone develops depression, bipolar disorder or other problems especially late in life the root cause can be a stroke or a series of mini-strokes that damage the parts of the brain that control mood and/or impulsive behavior. That happened to a friend of mine. Strokes can also happen at any time of life, but we associate them with older people. I know someone who had a massive stroke when he was 20.
So if someone whose brain was damaged by a stroke committed suicide, did the person choose to kill himself/herself or did the stroke(s) kill him/her?
One of the things that I have also learned is that the brains of people who commit suicide are different from those who die in accidents or are murdered. So did someone whose brain is physically different from “normal” choose to do something?
I have come to the conclusion that no, they didn’t choose to do so (in the way people usually make choices (as in where to go for lunch). I do not think it is something that is under the person’s control as much as the words choice and choose imply (at least to me). This may be real or my way of dealing with the possibility that my child may committ suicide one day.
If you are interested, here is a link to one of the studies:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/18/18/7394.full.pdf
I am having a bad day. I’ve tried to make it linkable, but I give up.
Comment by KarenH — June 5, 2012 @ 1:58 pm
Well, it actually was linkable, once I posted it.
Comment by Kip Colegrove — June 5, 2012 @ 8:50 pm
I think it was in a piece on driving trains written by John McPhee that I read how much locomotive drivers dread accidents involving people on the tracks.
It is still insufficiently appreciated by most people how impossible it is for those in control of something really big to stop it abruptly once it gets up to even a modest rate of speed.
Comment by Mary E Cowart — June 5, 2012 @ 10:37 pm
Loss of life is always tragic to those who loose loved ones or hear of others who die in untimely ways. Life will always go on for the survivors who get love and support from their friends, family, and other loved ones.
It is also hard to loose a member of a group who is moving to another city after the loss of a family member to be close to other family members (children, grandchildren).
It is hard for the group and hard for the
member who leaves. This is a time of joy for the member who leaves, but a time of burden for having to sell property, move posessions, make new friends.
We all at one of more times in our own lives must face similar situations.
God bless all who are in such situations.
Comment by Richard — June 6, 2012 @ 5:55 am
Elizabeth,
Here in UK your train might indeed have been allowed to proceed after the 2 hours – I just don’t know. It is other trains that the tracks are often closed to after that. Maybe so that investigators can examine the whole area without fear of being hit themselves. Looking for what? Maybe simply because everything has to be done by the book, which keeps getting bigger and bigger.
I’ve been indirectly affected twice in my life. This winter, taking a train to the airport, when it stopped two stations short (to go back the way it had come) while the passengers were bussed the rest of the way. I heard afterwards that a pedestrian had been killed on a road crossing, so maybe railway experts had to exhaustively prove that the automatic road barriers and warning lights were working properly. The other time (years ago) was a fatal collision between some cars on the motorway, and most of the delay was waiting for the specialists to arrive who were supposed to measure skid marks etc. (Never mind that a lot of vehicles had already driven over the evidence before the first policeman got there to stop everyone else)
Comment by Ulrika — June 6, 2012 @ 7:55 am
(More fodder for writer mind?)
Here in Sweden they never tell you why the train is delayed if they have hit a human, it is always due to an “accident” (since it is the only type of accident not specified, everyone knows anyway). Also newspapers will not specify the reason unless they are sure it is an accident. Suicide has become a taboo subject in Sweden, which I do not believe helps anyone.
The time it takes to get a train going again is spent cleaning the train, changing driver and, if needed, changing train engines. This can take any amount of time depending on how long it takes to get a new driver (and engine) to where the train is. Drivers are always changed, also if an animal has been hit (chock can set in later without warning so this is standard practice, counselling is always offered).
Warning for sensitive people – please read on with caution!
I have once spent more than an hour waiting for a train that had hit “two animals” on the track before my station, and then another hour waiting on the train at the station for a new driver to arrive. Rumour on the train said the animals were horses; two teenage boys that sat opposite me were very impressed by the blood and gore they has seen when they went to look at the engine.
Another story: a colleague came four hours late to work some weeks ago due to an “accident” where they asked everyone sitting on one side of the train to move to the other side (or not look out) while they were picking up pieces and hosing the train.
Getting hit by a train at speed does not make a pretty corpse. Knowing that might make a few think again about their choices. I have read somewhere that almost 80% of those killed by trains in Sweden are suicides.
Comment by Moira — June 6, 2012 @ 11:16 am
I was busy for a couple of days and came back to see this – I must have been too quick to post the first time, because I had no clue at that time about the suicide.
Elizabeth, I am so sorry for your loss. It’s never easy to lose someone, but it must be even tougher to lose a loved one like this than to old age or illness. My heartfelt sympathies to you and everyone else affected.
Comment by Genko — June 7, 2012 @ 9:33 am
Suicide — I had two relatives and one friend who committed suicide within a few months of each other last year. And I was hearing from others who had close friends killing themselves. I read a pamphlet about it for survivors, and it said that people who are depressed aren’t thinking clearly. They don’t make good choices. And so I think the question — how much of a choice is it, really — is a good one. It’s so easy to slide into guilt — I should have paid more attention, should have been kinder, should have found a way to talk him/her out of it. But ultimately, it’s a tragic thing that happens, and it is likely that we don’t contribute to the cause all that much, and that there wasn’t really anything we could have done to change things.
Still, it’s hard.
Comment by elizabeth — June 7, 2012 @ 12:28 pm
Ulrika: No one but train crew (and only two that I saw of those) were allowed off the train during the time we were waiting, and one of the crewmen had blocked up the window at the rear of the train. We were first told there had been an emergency…then a “fatal incident.” Given all the flashing lights outside (visible back down the tracks) it was obvious the emergency wasn’t aboard the train. I don’t know what Amtrak’s protocols are, but I would assume they include changing out the driver, though possibly not immediately. These long-haul trains change out drivers several times a trip, and a change was coming up (we were only maybe 15 minutes from the station in Fort Worth.) We could not see the engine, so I have no idea if they changed out drivers for that short distance. (It would not have taken long for the relief driver to be taken to the site in a car, for that matter, but they announced that drivers would change out in Fort Worth.)
Comment by elizabeth — June 7, 2012 @ 12:32 pm
That’s a McPhee I haven’t read, and he’s one of my favorite nonfiction writers. I’ll have to find it.
It must be a special horror to see someone/some vehicle/some animal on the tracks and know there’s no way you can avoid hitting them even if you slam on all the brakes.
Comment by elizabeth — June 7, 2012 @ 12:35 pm
I can’t see the video…I get a message saying it’s viewable only in the UK…and haven’t located it on the BBC radio link they give.
Comment by Kip Colegrove — June 7, 2012 @ 2:12 pm
I remember the first piece by McPhee I read, The Survival of the Bark Canoe, and I could hardly believe what he was achieving with non-fiction prose. Some people make it look so easy…
I think the essay on train driving is in Uncommon Carriers, published in 2006 (it’s not on my shelf–alas–or I’d check), though when I read it it was in a magazine, probably the New Yorker.
Comment by elizabeth — June 7, 2012 @ 5:46 pm
The past week of travel, A-Kon, and so on finally really caught up with me and I face-planted in the bed this afternoon and slept for four hours.
On the good side, my eyes don’t burn.
On the down side, that’s four hours of work undone. Make-up time!
Comment by elizabeth — June 7, 2012 @ 6:10 pm
And now I’ve got email from my agent asking how long I think it will take me to finish the rewrites. ARGH.
Comment by Richard — June 8, 2012 @ 3:47 pm
#17: I’ve found two copies on YouTube, maybe you can view one of them. “The Queen’s Jubilee Pageant – Rule Britannia” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb8fqxOdhn8 though viewed much less often is the better quality. (The problems in that were the BBC’s own, from the live broadcast not the highlights repeat; the other one has lost some definition during its capture and upload).
Comment by Ginny W. — June 8, 2012 @ 8:11 pm
I have been away from the computer for a few days.
Many years ago, I worked in the Regional Federal Railroad Safety Office in Philadelphia. One case of suicide occurred during that time, and the driver was indeed relieved immediately. He was extremely shaken and upset by the incident, even though it was clear that the person who died had intentionally jumped onto the track into the path of the oncoming train.
There are any number of ways in which people who commit suicide are not thinking clearly, but there is a special tragedy when they involve someone else.
I hope the writer’s brain goes back into steady gear. Sleep is a great healer for the kind of cognitive-emotional roller coaster that seems to have been in your path.
Comment by Iphinome — June 8, 2012 @ 9:16 pm
@Ginny W
Not everyone has the opportunity for a private suicide. Sometimes people suspect, sometimes people watch and the only chance one gets is to hop off a platform just as a train is pulling in. Not everyone can get to the top of a tall building or slip off to swim until they can swim no more.
Comment by elizabeth — June 8, 2012 @ 10:32 pm
iphinome: Due to circumstances far in the past, I once told my mother that my preferred method of killing myself would be to fly a plane out over the ocean until it ran out of fuel and then dive. (Now that I’ve been a parent, I can just imagine what saying that did to her!) She pointed out that it would be no fun at all for the people searching. So I started considering things that wouldn’t be upsetting to others. Dorothy Parker wrote “Resume” listing why various methods were not acceptable (ending with “You might as well live”) and that was my conclusion, finally. (I was a moody and internally dramatic adolescent. But very, very good on the outside.)
However…I’m glad Master Oakhallow showed up and saved Paks from her determination to go freeze on the foothills of the Dwarfmounts.
Comment by Iphinome — June 9, 2012 @ 12:49 am
Yes Lady, anyone who was a moody teen would have considered their options at some point. My goth past is begging me to expand on that but putting on all that eye makeup just to type something morbid seems^H^H^H^H^H (no Iphi, mustn’t use that word) is such a chore. My only real point was people who want to check out do consider availability as well as means. Private less messy options aren’t always available.
I too am glad Master Oakenhallow was there to save Paks after the completely justified, consensual, loving, and in no way evil treatment Paks received at the hands of Arianya. But it illustrates my point, once in the grove, slipping off to the hills wasn’t an option, had she still been determined she would have had to leap at any reasonably sure, quick, non ideal, opportunity such as leaping into a stampeding bale of flesh eating turtles.
Comment by Richard — June 9, 2012 @ 1:50 am
A bale of turtles, @Iphinome! – you’re right. Good job I checked before querying.
Yes, I’m sure we’re all glad Paks chose to go into Oakhallow’s grove then. And that Estil sent for Kieri to save Aliam by blowing up their house.
Comment by Richard — June 9, 2012 @ 1:59 am
P.S. Elizabeth, Iphinome’s reference to Arianya and Paks comes out of Speculation-SpoilerSpace last week, so you don’t want to know. Except that we’d been contrasting Verrakai invasion with what the iynisin did to Luap.
Comment by Jenn — June 9, 2012 @ 8:39 am
Elizabeth,
I am very sorry about your friend. Prayers go out to all loved ones involved.
Comment by Sam Barnett-Cormack — June 9, 2012 @ 9:06 am
Condolences on the loss of a friend. That sounds like a hard day. I lost a cousin to suicide a couple of years ago, and my father thought it best not to tell me at the time. My aunt (his sister, the cousin’s mother) was not pleased with him about that.
I was on a train once, in the 90s, that was delayed by a passenger death, in the weirdest of ways. It was an old slam-door train, doors opening outwards, and at a station someone opened the door on the wrong side of the train – as a train bypassing the station went past. It was on the front carriage (the one that’s also the engine), so we had to wait for it to be switched out, sitting there with only emergency power (so low light level, after dark). The person apparently died, and the carriage was badly damaged.
Comment by Iphinome — June 9, 2012 @ 3:01 pm
@Richard, that’s what you may have been contrasting but I was comparing apples to apples with Luap being the überapfel, erm übermensch.