For what it’s worth, I was on Amtrak 11, Southbound Coast Starlight tonight. I took a day trip to Santa Barbara for my birthday. We were essentially on time through Oxnard, Simi Valley and Van Nuys. We went into emergency about a quarter mile short of Burbank Airport. Tresspasser, as the conductor called it, was hit. We waited 3 hours for the coroner to arrive, and finally moved again 3 hours 10 min. late.
I walked into my home about half an hour ago, and see nothing on the local news. So, go figure. If it had happened in the daytime rush hour, it would have been all over the tv.
Very likely a homeless, but you never know. Sad all around.
It’s hard to say just what the TV news people consider newsworthy or not.
I check the northern New Jersey on-line news sites daily just to see what’s going on with the home folks and if a NJ Transit, Amtrak, CSX or NS train hits a tresspasser it’s reported, usually without fail. It happens on average at least once a month. It’s sad all right.
For whatever the reasons, suicide has become much more prevalent in out 21st Century society than previously.’
We are hearing of many suicides from the military and police forces. Saw a article about a 21 YO athletic and acedemic stand out that took her own life. In my own favored hobby a under 40, 7 time National Champion with a thriving race preparation business decided to end it all. Neither of these party’s use the railroad as their ‘weapon’ but they ended their lives never the less.
I don’t have any answers, just the single question - Why?
“On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 30% between 2000 and 2020, from 10.4 to 13.5 suicides per 100,000 people. In 2018, 14.2 people per 100,000 died by suicide, the highest rate recorded in more than 30 years.” - CDC
Increased availability of firearms is a factor, as in over 50% of cases a firearm is used.
There really isn’t increased availability of firearms. Purchase laws are stricter now than they were a few decades ago. If someone intent on committing suicide can’t find a gun, they’ll do it another way…train, OD, jumping, etc. I am aware of three suicides by gun. What was interesting is that none used their own gun. They all rented a gun at a range. IMO, the first one had a reason, the other two I could never figure out.
Firearms are no more available now than they were in 1960. Back then in addition to specialized gun shops you could buy firearms in department stores, sporting goods stores, general stores, or any retailer who felt like carrying them. You could even mail-order them from Sears-Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, or others.
All of the above depended on juristiction of course but Backshop’s also correct when he says firearms laws are much stricter now than they were 62 years ago.
An interesting fact with firearms sucides though is the major majority of suicides who use a gun to kill themselves are men, women tend to use other means.
It’s truly sad anyway you look at it, especially since help is so much more available now. But as the saying goes “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
And if the CDC is correct, and I don’t see why not, and suicides have increased 30% in the past 20 years the real question is why?
Maybe there is no answer. Not every question has an answer.
While they may be no more ‘abailable’ than in 1960 - there certainly appear to many more of them - and more of them also mean more of them fall into ‘unqualified’ hands. Guns in the USA are a absolute mess.
While there are many more of them, our population has also expanded greatly. People don’t commit suicide because they have a gun. They commit suicide because they are despondent and the gun is merely the vehicle that they use. They could also OD, jump, start the car in a closed garage, etc.
It’s sorta like the whole opioid crisis. While not discounting immoral doctors and a specific drug company, many of the addicts would’ve been addicts of something else, if not opioids. When you have all these 20-30-somethings claiming that they have serious pain from injuries and that’s how they started, it’s mainly BS. People that young normally don’t have traumatic injuries like that. They’re just good actors when they go to the doctor’s office.
After too many sucides by train, Japanese RRs several years ago decided to sue the estates of those choosing this method of dying. The stated reason was protection of engineers from the ensueing trauma. I do not know if this reduced suicides or not. This may have worked because of the specific demographics involved.
Several years ago, there were several people killed on the GTW just north of Detroit in Royal Oak. There was a lively nightlife downtown right next to the tracks. They were trying to get the railroad to fence off the RoW. They claimed that people went out and got drunk and didn’t hear the trains when it was obvious that people got drunk so that they had the “courage” to commit suicide.
The gun is far more likely to be fatal. With most other means, the person can change their mind and or initiate but then get help. I had or heard from colleagues of several of the latter over my 35 years of clinical practice. Guns are far more lethal.
Also, I gave rates per hundred thousand, not absolute numbers.
It happened a few times in quick succession and things like that normally bring copycats because now it’s “okay” for them to do it. Unless you’re wearing headphones, it’s kinda hard not to hear a blaring train horn. If you’re that drunk, you probably couldn’t walk there in the first place.
There were 3 suicides at the gun range that I worked at. I was there for two of them. The first one, I had empathy for the victim, but not so much for the other two. The first one was a young woman who suffered from PTSD. She was from Iowa and was treated at the VA in Battle Creek. The treatment wasn’t successful because she had the cab driver drop her off at our range near the Detroit airport. She shot several different guns and seemed happy-go-lucky until “that moment”. The second was a middle aged man going through a divorce. The strange thing was his children were all adults so it wasn’t a custody thing. In fact, one of his sons called up and apologized to us. The third one was the strangest. He was a 21yo Marine from Oklahoma, stationed at Camp Pendleton. He came in two nights in a row and did it the second night. Nobody could explain what he was doing in Michigan.
After that, us and the other big stores/ranges came out with a unified policy that we won’t rent to unknown customers unless they are accompanied by a friend. We haven’t had any suicides since then, to my knowledge.
No, that just says that I worked at a gun range. I’m sure any railroad engineer here has their stories where trains are the focus. Does that mean that trains are the means of choice. Or an ER doc would say he’s seen more intentional ODs. Does that mean that drugs are the means of choice?
As far as empathy, I had loads of it for the person with PTSD. The other two, not as much. This might sound cold, but the biggest fear that I had was someone accidentally shooting themselves or someone else. You make sure everyone knows the rules and you give a safety demonstration to all new(er) shooters, but you never know what they might do. I’d feel terrible if someone I instructed got wounded or killed. I made peace with myself on the suicides in that that’s what they wanted and they didn’t hurt anyone else.