That's a shame,she most likily jogs the same route every day and who would think you could get hurt so badly or even killed doing a morning stroll. So who does her legal eagle sue, The makers of Ipod, the railroad,the running shoe manufacturer or the wrist watch manufacturer since she started her jog 5 minutes earlier because it ran fast. I think it's just a matter of timimg in life
OMG...that is truely awful!! What are the chances? She is lucky she was not killed, but losing both legs, man that will be tough to get over. John
Sad. But- Seems to me there is some detail missing from that story. Such as the route she was taking. Was she using the tracks as her path? If so, she was trespassing... So many people use tracks as a personal trail. :sad: Boxcab E50
Call me crazy, but I thought when we are out & about we should pay attention to our surroundings, whether driving, walking or jogging. I feel bad for the person who was injured, because for her things have changed drastically. However, no amount of money or army of lawyers can ever, EVER, EVER take the place of either personal responsibility or alertness. I don't own an iPod, or even a Walkman. I prefer to listen to my tunes either driving or at home. And has anybody even given a fig about the crew of the train and how THEY feel?
So from the beginning of the day who awoke with the black cloud over their head the jogger or one of the train crew?. Who was having the crappy day to put all this timing sequence into motion?
"Stuff" happens. There are no guarantees in life. That is why you need to be aware of your surroundings. If you are going to disable one of your senses and navigate through a hazardous environment, then the odds of something bad happening to you just went up. Some folks get away with it, some don't. Darwin Awards anyone? I like to do everything to up my odds.
Every so often,the BNSF gets a jogger along the "Aurora Racetrack". They STILL haven't figgered it out that high speed commuter trains operate there. Hell, the railroad's been there for only about 150 years or so! I feel sorry ONLY for the crews, and then mostly because it ruins what was otherwise a perfectly normal day.Some guys I worked with had more than one tresspasser to their credit. Sadly, it is more or less expected when you work the job. It is unfortunate that stupidity is NOT a criminal offense! CT
That's a tragic story for sure. It remeinds me of another story, very close to home. When I was in highschool I used to catch the train to get to school every morning. At that time of the day they would be running slow enough that we were able to hop on quite easily. One day at school the principal made an annoncement on the PA system that one of the kids from our school was hit by the same train we used to catch. Turned out he was a good friend of mine. Luckily, he wasn't too seriously hurt. Worst of his injuries was a serious concussion. Scared the crap out of all of us train riders and we never did it again. Silver lining to this cloud was this accident instantly made him the most popular kid in school. Go figure. To this day I still remember his name and hearing of the accident like it happened yesterday.
I agree that it's awful for that train crew. That woman is going to have a whole lifetime to think about what happened. Yes, she should have been paying attention and shouldn't have been running tracks with her iPod on, but what an awful price to pay for a lack of attention. I don't know how to get the message across to people that TRAINS ARE BIG AND DANGEROUS AND CAN KILL YOU! My way to work includes hopping off a bus near a grade crossing. I have to cross it to get to work and to leave work and get back to the bus. I see people run around those cross-bucks nearly every time they go down. There are other commuters on foot like me. There are cars. There are cyclists and people on motorcycles. There are joggers listening to music. Some guy got killed earlier this year by, apparently, stumbling drunk in front of a train one grade crossing north of my grade crossing. Someone saw a guy that looked like he had passed out, jumped out of their car to look, and found that his lower half had been amputated at about the navel. Needless to say, he was dead. What I don't get is how people keep getting hit by trains. The tracks tell you about all you need to know about where the train is going to go. All you need to do is watch. One of my friend's mothers intentionally jumped in front of a commuter train about 11 years ago and killed herself. I am still a little angry with her for doing that to her family and friends and also at what she did to that train crew, who were just there doing their job and someone decides to ruin their day.
An estimated one in one hundred people suffer from schizophrenia, a disorder which seriously impairs ones ability to deal with reality. I wonder how often this is a factor in incidents like this. Just a thought. Frank
I use to be a signal maintainer. Rode the trains now and again. I would never be a trainman. A near miss every time I rode. Had a buddy tell me about running over a drunk sleeping on the tracks. He woke up and looked right in my buddies eyes just before he got cut in two. It was at night so they didnt see him until they were very close. I cant imagine living with that.
Regardless of what leads up to such a decision, it's still the most selfish thing a person can ever do. Over the years, I've lost a couple of close friends to this end. And also found someone who'd just completed this action. Leaves me with some very lousy memories. For those who've never had the experience of aftermath, be glad. :sad: Boxcab E50
Many years ago now my good friend's brother had a few too many (he was drinking underage BTW) and took the "short cut" home which was by way of the tracks. He apparently passed out on the tracks where he was summarily hit and killed by a passing BN freight. Terrible tragedy for the family but also a nightmare-creator for that train crew. John
With trains getting faster, and with remote control coming soon, there will possibly be additional suicides by rail. People just live in a tunneled frame of mind today.
The only good thing about remote control would be that no one would be in the seat and have to watch it happen as the suicides step into the line of fire...only the end results. I hate this trend of increasing trespassing and suicides. That's why I get that sick feeling every time I see anyone near the tracks. You just never know what they're up to... Within recent memory for instance...I blew a vagrant and his bottle right in the ditch because he was so close when I went by...chased three kids playing chicken (in 3 separate places) off the tracks, nearly speared a car full of people on a private crossing, watched a guy get his pickup bent by having crossing gate arms come down on top of him trying to beat me across, had 5 kids crawl through my train while I was waiting for the conductor to line a switch, watched 2 more jump on and off another moving train 4 times before I could yell on the radio for him to stop, chewed up a bicycle and a stack of pallets dumped on the track, come on a guy with his 4-wheeler stuck on the rail (he yanked it off just as we got there) and almost dumped the brakes for a railfan straddling the rail for that perfect head-on shot. And people wonder why they sometimes don't get a happy toot and a wave from crews when they're fooling around near the track. Nobody wants to kill someone just because they took a call to go to work but I think suicides are the worst. I suppose anyone in enough pain to pull the pin by locomotive probably doesn't care about who they hurt in the process anyway but why they choose us as their way out is beyond me.
Rule 281, do you get compensated time off for a tresspasser incident? We can get 3 days on the BNSF, but while I was there, the new(female) Supt. of Suburban Services thought she would "get tough" with the guys and said that the only way you could get the time off is if you were to go see the shrink. At any rate, that was the unions call! I went to see the union recommended therapist,after the fatality I had as the conductor of a stack train. I had a couple of decent chats with him, and I gave the company a break, I only took 2 days off. For the benefit of the hobbyists, what Rule 281 describes is NOT unusual or an exception. We constantly had stuff like that happen on the Aurora racetrack. One time, IIRC, when I was working job #1200 there was a mentally deranged kid out on the "racetrack" either playing chicken or just not succeeding in an attempted suicide. We were stopped at Westmont(?) and this kid ran in front of an E.B. that was just departing. That hogger spiked it and missed the kid, who then ran back our way. We heard the commotion on the radio and got the description of the kid and saw him headed our way. When he got close enough, he realized that we were ready to pursue him and he turned and ran back from whence he had come. By this time the local police had responded and they were pulling up to us and we pointed out the kid to them. They gave pursuit and captured him. Another time on an afternoon job, we witnessed a disheveled looking male standing on the ROW adjacent to MT3 while we were pulling in to Clarendon Hills. We reported this on the radio and the DS summoned the police and they came to get him. We learned later that they took him to a mental hospital. He had admitted that he was contemplating suicide. We got an "orchid" letter for that one. I, personally, was always hollering at the kids skateboarding on the station platforms,in violation of posted signs. They were a hazard to passengers, and I was just waiting for the day that one of them "skated" right in front of a passing train. I chased a group of them once, one of them having deserted his board, which I confiscated and gave to the METRA police with an explanation of how it happened. I never did hear anything about that. As an engineer the only untoward thing that ever happened to me was that I mortally wounded a crossing gate laying across MT1 at La Grange Road. It had been ripped from its mooring by the truck that succesfully beat me to the crossing. I was running an express to Downers Grove, so I was doing the full 70mph at that point. I had some kids on bikes playing "chicken" with me once when I was taking a stack train out of Cicero Yard. Since I was doing only 10 mph, they "chickened" me at Ridgeland Ave(La Vergne) and then sped ahead to Oak Park Ave(Berwyn), "chickened" me again and then sped towards Harlem Ave.(Berwyn) at which point one of them was alongside of me on Stanley Ave(adjacent to MT1) and I told him in very adult language that I would be more than happy to run his silly little backside over if he ever did that again. Fortunately by the time I had reached that point my train was clear of the yard and the x-overs and I was throttling up to track speed so these little geniuses decided to forego any more chicken. Dont even get me started on the high school kids who routinely short-cut across the mains, rather that using the sidewalks and legal paths. It's a hoot out there, ain't it Rule 281! CT
If you would have given persuit and the person was killed or seriously injured during your chase, what then?????
