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Early word from WMATA that a person was struck by an Orange Line train at the West Falls Church-VT/UVA Metro station at 11:18 a.m. The six-car train was headed in the direction of New Carrollton when it struck a person who was on the tracks as the train pulled into the station. Trains are now sharing one track through the station, which will likely result in delays of up to 30 minutes on the Orange Line until mid-afternoon. No word yet on who the person was, their condition or whether they were on the tracks intentionally. UPDATE 12:04 p.m.: Metro now says that preliminary reports indicate the train struck a male customer who was on the tracks intentionally. UPDATE 12:14 p.m. WMATA confirms the man has died.
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Does anyone know about the armed robbery on 13th NW last night in Columbia Heights? The helicopters
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good lord.
Wow. We need to stop letting people near the Metro, they could get hurt.
If some guy wants to end his life that's really none of my business, but I think its pretty selfish to do it in a public venue where its going to traumatize all the people watching. What about the people on the platform? What about the train operator?? I was just at that station a couple hours ago and would definitely be pretty shaken if I witnessed that.
I always feel for the train operators when I read these stories. Now they are probably going to relive that moment for the rest of their lives. Pretty selfish way to go IMO.
We should get all the suicides in the same room and explain to them that their past behavior was inconsiderate.
Now I know there are costs involved, but this suicide by train is such a common and disruptive occurrence I'd be really happy to hear there was some sort of future plans for platform screen doors, if for no other reason than to keep the trains running on time. Let them jump off Duke Ellington Bridge instead. Offer free rides to Woodley Park-Zoo for the depressed. Just do something.
No to platform screen doors. It will inconvenience the many to 'save' the exceptionally few who use death by train. You can still jump on to the tracks from any overpass, and you can't regulate behavior.
How much of an inconvenience would they be, especially if they kept the trains running on time? I'm thinking that if they had to find an overpass to jump on the tracks, they would no longer consider train tracks to be such a convenient option, and would pick some other way to commit suicide, which is what I'm hoping for. I'm not interested in regulating behavior. I'm interested in minimizing train delays.
Good points yes, but the inconvenience would be in the form of showing where the doors would open. In a perfect world folks would line up at these "openings", they would stand out of the way to let people exit, then quickly get on the train, quickly move to the center of the car, and everyone would get on.
But that's not the way it would work here. Folks would line up at these "openings", they would block people from exiting, slowly get on the train, stand in the doorway, and no one else would get on.
Without "gates" one has a reasonable chance of getting on the train because people don't bunch up as the would at gates.
Overall delays related to suicide by train are not that common and over the course of a year may add just to few hours to delays.
Has Metro always had such rotten luck and I've just not been paying attention, or is this just the worst year ever for them?
i'm sure with the economic collapse the metro-assisted suicide rate has gone up but i'm too lazy to check the statistics.
WMATA has clearly done something to ruin its Karma.
Times are hard. People are losing everything. This will not end well. This can not be stopped. If they had owned a gun. Perhaps they would have shot themselves. If we had more access to elevation. We would have more jumpers. The subway is accessible. You are right there. The tracks are right there. The decision is yours.
Remove those parts of the suicide baffles on Duke Ellington Bridge that aren't directly over Rock Creek Parkway.
not to mention it's relatively cheap when you compare it to buying a gun or even a length of rope.
Actually, WFC has three tracks, and if I recall correctly from the Post, trains are just using the other two tracks for now.
What an inconsiderate asshat. They should plasticize him and leave him there as a deterrent to other would-be jumpers.
What I'm really curious about is, if you accidentally fall on the tracks, whether it's possible to press yourself down between the rails so that the train passes over you. Does anyone know of instances of this happening in DC? I know there have been such cases in New York, but I think Metro cars are built with a lower clearance.
There was a case where a man fell and was rescued by another who quickly rolled over to a safe spot.
There was a story about a near miss not too long ago. IIRC, it said that there is a crawl space hollowed out in one of the walls that you can roll into to avoid getting run over by the train. Not sure if anyone's survived to tell if this actually works.
As reported here, it happened during inauguration:
http://dcist.com/2009/01/person_struck_on_red_line.php
This has become so common that metro should install buttons or emergency call phones on the platform so other passengers who see this can alert the station manager that there is a person on the tracks. Maybe there should even be an emergency stop button on the platform.
Whats the point of having all those security cameras in the stations if there isn't anyone watching them to make sure nobody is on the tracks before a train comes in?
New Mercedes have radar systems in the front bumper that keep them from driving into cars in front of them on the highway.
NTSB should force Metro retrofit all cars with such a system and to build them into all new cars. Tracking the trains in realtime with Wee-z bonds is great but radar would keep trains from hitting each other AND from hitting people on the tracks.
There are already emergency phones on the platform.
So living in a city populated largely by douchebag lawyers, pampered and spoiled rich college kids, and ghetto criminals is so miserable that about 10% of the population seems to want to commit suicide.
Sounds about right.