I was talking with a Paramedic friend the other day at a minor collision, and we reminisced over jobs we had been at together. When I say Paramedic friend I don't even know his first name. He calls me 'Sarge' and I call him 'mate'. Usually you find due to shift patterns when you go to jobs its always the same Ambulance, Fire, door staff or security guards you end up working with.
The medic reminded me the last time we had met was at a 'one under'. This term refers to someone who has been run over by a train. Ive dealt with three so far in my career and they are never pleasant.
The one in question was the worst I had been to. It was small rural station near a big town and many people try and beat the rush hour traffic and parking problems by going to this station and getting the train from there. The call came in just as shift changed on earlies leading to a stream of cars in convoy fighting their way through the school run. I was a PC tutoring a probationer at the time having just ended a long period of being an acting Sgt whilst waiting for a post to be promoted into. On arrival we got the usual cordon and log put up (please see last blog entry for details of this) the Sgt on the rota took one look at the scene and volunteered to guard a nearby car park that had nothing to do with the incident and wasn't seen for three hours. Looking around from a cast of thousands (well ok four of us) I realised I would have to take charge. Witnesses who had observed the person jumping in front of the train were easy to spot. They had the one hundred yard stare and were spattered in various body parts. Their statements coupled with the CCTV showed very quickly that this was a suicide. I updated the Inspector who was on route and asked for British Transport Police (whose jurisdiction all railway stations fall under) to be informed. Once BTP arrived and the railway company confirmed that the track was safe to go on we had the unfortunate task of picking up the body parts. My probationer had never seen a dead body before so I thought this would be an ideal way to introduce them to this part of policing, if they could deal with this they can deal with nearly any incident involving a dead body. Unfortunately he jumped straight down onto the track into a pile of what I believe was intestines. When I pointed this out to him, he left hurriedly and joined the Sgt guarding the important car park. Without wishing to be too gruesome the biggest body part we found was a single foot with no shoe or sock. Strangely we also found three shoes. We did our best but there was no way we could have recovered all the parts that were spread over a good three hundred meters over the track and platform. Every time I travel by train now I stand at the station wondering how far I am from the nearest remains.
Before long we had identified who the deceased was and informed the next of kin. BTP had declared the line open and we all resumed, I was starving hungry but not in the mood for breakfast. A few things struck me from this, I felt sad for the person who had jumped. This was dimmed somewhat when I read a statement from a witness who the deceased had made eye contact with before crossing both arms across their body and falling backwards into the path of the train. I felt for the train driver, for the Sgt and my probationer and other emergency and railway staff involved. I did not feel sorry for the commuters at the train station in the main town nearby who decided to verbally abuse and in one case assault rail staff at the station due to the delay.
On a slightly lighter note a friend told me of a 'one under' they attended the other day. The would be deceased had jumped in front of a diesel train coming to a stop at the railway station. Being a diesel train meant the track was not live and as it was stopping he merely bounced off the front and laid on the track moaning before my friend arrived and took him away.
7 comments:
I saw one incident like this 25+ years ago while waiting for a train. It sickened me and I remember it as vividly as if yesterday. Working on incidents like this must be one of the toughest parts of the job.
I met a bloke once who was a railway manager, and he had several photo albums full of photos of suicides and car vs train crashes that had happened on his watch.
He said that he left them on the coffee table in his office, and that whenever some bigwig visited to complain about some minor this or that which had gone wrong recently, he simply pointed them at the stack of albums, told them that he had been dealing with one of them, and as a result, did not have the time to deal with Mrs Kafups and her lost cat, and then left to make two cups of coffee.
By the time he returned, the minor complaints and bungs had been forgotten. He rather graphically described one unfortunate who leapt in front of a freight train and was effectively thin sliced as he was pushed over hundreds of sleepers. The edge of each concrete sleeper grated a bit off the body as it went over it.
When he got to the bit where they found his kidneys several hundred yards along the line from the impact point, that was enough for me.
I had one who jumped in front of a100mph+ train in the rural area I used to work.Arms legs and head went in every direction but gruesomely the torso remained impaled on the front of the engine and by the time the driver could bring the train to a halt they were entering the next station-so everyone got the full effects-and guess what-this was aperson who had recently been released from a mental health institution for "care in the community"
I am not quite sure how you guys and girls deal with this kind of stuff. I am not sure how they can prepare you for it in training, though i hope they make the effort to do some kind of desensitisation.
A Traffic Officer told me once that a colleague had worked in an abbatoir for 6 months prior to joining. I expect this helped.
On another point, another Traffic Officer (retired) told me that for most deaths he went to, generally RTCs, the deceased was not wearing any shoes when they found what remained of them.
Whats that all about? Why do dead people not have shoes on? I tell you what though, when I go out my expensive Gucci armoured boots are done up proper tightly.
Meant to say, when i go out on my m/c the boots are done up proper tightly :-)
Shoeless is not unusual-for some reason their shoes always come off at impact-or more properly the feet come out of their shoes-its probably something to do the Laws of Motion.
I spent 3 years at our Transit Branch (similar to BTP but part of the same force). This happens a lot more than the average person knows. Here, the press dont report suicides for fear of encouraging more. (probably not a bad thing to discourage)
They can be the most horrible of scenes and bodies to have to deal with. nasty.
But jumping down into the body, or parts there of, well it may have taught the probie a valuable lesson. look before you leep, maybe
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