The Crazy Train

[lydamorehouse]

 Mason had to go into school today because his senior honor's project is starting a garden club. He was organizing his team to build the planters today. But, since I had no idea how long that was going to take him, I drove home. 

The fastest route takes me down university, along side the light rail. 

When the light rail was built, my neighborhood lobbied for a stop. We got one, but on Fairview. We managed to talk them into a crossing area on my street, but if I wanted to turn left into my neighborhood, I actually have to go down to Fairview, turn a u-turn, and loop back two blocks to my house. 

While I was waiting to turn around on Fairview in the turn lane, I watched someone run right into the train.

Like, physically, a human--on foot.  

Like, not run in front of the train and die, but like run into the side of the moving train and get knocked back. The craziest thing is that this white guy first dodged a car almost getting run over, and then, having safely made it to the other side of the street proceeded to keep moving, despite a train obviously in front of him. 

At first I thought he stopped short of the train. Papers he'd been carrying when flying everywhere, and he stumbled back. If the train's emergency breaks hadn't instantly engaged, I would have assumed he'd had a really close call. Some part of him must have hit the train, but he got up and started collecting his papers. Clearly everyone was worried, because someone who was making a right turn onto University stopped to try to talk to him and see if he was okay. He hung out chatting with that person for a long time. I suspect the train conductor was dialing 911. 

Since the train wasn't moving, I decided to just go down to the next intersection to make my u-turn. There wasn't anything I could do for the guy, anyway, since he was clearly upright, moving, and talking to people. But, as I was waiting at that light, two emergency vehicles screamed down to where the train was still stopped. By the time I made it back to that intersection, I could see from the other side that three first responders were trying to convince this guy, who was now sitting on the platform, to get into the stretcher they had ready for him. I have no idea if they convinced him, but I was sorely tempted to shout out to the police officer who was talking to the train conductor that the conductor was in NO WAY at fault. This guy literally ran into the side of a train, seemingly fully aware of it? Or distracted by the narrow miss of the car?? 

It was weird.  

I hope everyone involved is okay.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

You and everyone else, conductor especially (well, train dude especially) dodged a bullet. If he'd gotten hit the way people normally get hit by trains, that would have been really bad to see.

[lydamorehouse]

AGREED. I don't think I'd be calmly typing up my reaction to it, either!

I think the reason that it was so unbelievable is because we were all of us watching waiting for the worst. Like, given how narrowly he'd managed avoiding getting hit by a car...

[sabotabby]

Y i k e s. Yeah. Hope everyone is okay.

[lydamorehouse]

Hard same. It was weird.

[anirrationalseason]

Wow that's wild. Hope he's okay.

Hope you are as well. I once was in the vicinity of a shooting (I didn't see anything, and the person lived) and I remember I was running on crazy adrenaline for the next few days.

[lydamorehouse]

I think I'd be feeling way worse about it, if hadn't seen the ambulances and police on the scene so FAST. Like, he seemed like the kind of guy who could have suffered a concussion and just figured he'd "walk it off," you know. But, no one was letting him get away with that, so it's easier to imagine that he's okay--or being taken care of, at least.

I don't know if I wrote about it here, or not, but I was also in a store when it was robbed at gun point. That was far more freaky, like your shooting incident. It keep me jumping for days.

I think this one, THANKFULLY, will be just a head scratcher.

[anirrationalseason]

I don't know if I wrote about it here, or not, but I was also in a store when it was robbed at gun point. Oh my gosh! No, I didn't know about that. I couldn't imagine being in that situation (and yes, that would absolutely warrant more jumpiness!). At least with the train fellow, you know that EMTs were on the case and were not going to just let the guy walk away, and you didn't have to witness anything truly terrible.

[pameladean]

That is so strange! I'm glad the person got help immediately and didn't seem injured. But what an odd thing to do. You must have had trouble believing your eyes. I'm not sure absentmindedness can be that extreme.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

Super weird. Disturbing, but at least not as horrific as it could have been!

[naomikritzer]

Ambulance EMTs are trained to be really forceful about it if they think you need to go in. Years ago I was at a neighborhood ice rink skating with my kids when a lady out skating with her own kid got hit in the head by a hockey puck hit with a slap shot that had escaped the hockey barriers. It knocked her out cold, though only briefly, so from her perspective, she was skating along minding her own business and then she was lying on the ground in intense pain with no idea of where her child was. I skated over and reassured her that her kid was RIGHT there, sitting next to her on the ice, completely unhurt, and then I took her phone and dialed 911 for her. Fire arrived first and was pretty casual about hoisting her up into a sitting position. She was still in pain but talking about calling her boyfriend and having him drive her to an urgent care to get checked out. Then the ambulance pulled up with EMTs who side-eyed Fire and put her in a cervical collar and wheeled out the stretcher and they were (correctly!) very firm that she needed an ER. (First of all, she had lost consciousness -- she said no, when they asked, and I corrected her. People hear "loss of consciousness" and picture the movies where you're out for hours. She was out long enough to hit the ice and not remember falling, that's loss of consciousness. She absolutely had a head injury and that needed to be evaluated. Second, I didn't think of this until they put the collar on her but YES, this injury could have fractured cervical vertebrae, and that absolutely needed evaluation.)

They didn't even talk her into it per se, they just acted like it was very obvious that a hospital trip was what comes next for something like this, and she went along with it. Her boyfriend came to the park and took charge of the little kid.

[lydamorehouse]

Wow, that's a hell of a story. I'm glad to hear that the EMT just acted like, "And now is the part of this experience where you just go to the hospital, come along..." because seriously, I was worried this guy was going to wander off and have been concussed, you know?