The headline read "Train Vs. Pedestrian"
Sounds to me almost like a fight that you can't buy tickets to. It also sounds ridiculous. It was not train vs pedestrian. Perhaps the headline should read "Pedestrian vs. Pedestrian" for those final moments must have been a very intense battle.
I don't think anybody really wants to die. I bet those last moments may have had many tinges of regret.
I have thought about this all week because on my daily walk with coworkers there were just short of a dozen community service vehicles on scene to deal with this incident. I saw the cop with the drone who had found what was left of the body. I then saw the police and fire personal walking and searching and then huddling around what was probably the spot. I cannot imagine and do not want to know what that mass looked like. The haunting image ingrained in those service people's minds now, an addition to all the trauma they deal with daily.
A quick out for that man is now on the memory of so many. That quick out also caused havoc for travelers for most of that day. It's almost aggravating to think about that stuff. We say things like, "Why didn't he just pick a different place?," or "Didn't he think of all this after stuff?" Nope, he definitely wasn't thinking about those things. Those irrational last thoughts were probably pretty heavy. I don't want to know them either. I wish somebody could have changed his mind. My sympathy even for a stranger is strong and in those moments hoping it wasn't one of "ours."
Last year a similar disruption in travel was on the busy thoroughfare between here and Salt Lake City. I thought the same thoughts: "Why didn't he chose a different way, a way that wouldn't have made the morning commute so difficult for so many?" Those thoughts came to a screaming halt when I discovered who it was, a former student. The demons he carried strong too, and I only know a few of them.
I hate thinking, "Is it one of ours?" after every incident like this. If only the love and support of an army of people could help win this battle. The one that seems so impossible at times.
Train vs. Pedestrian.
