The suicide rate will probably get worse now we're on the home straight to 2010, the clocks have gone back so people start to get depressed with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) or Winter Blues as some people call it.
Then you have all of the "credit crunch" problems as well & then we have THAT <Spit, Spit> thing in December, so they'll get even more depressed when the bills for that come in, in the new year!
I only wish they'd resort to Paracetamol & Alcohol or similar instead of involving others, a mate of mine only came back to work a while ago only for someone to jump in front of him & Wimbledon.
Part of his head exploded on the Windscreen the other part & entrails landed in front of weekend shoppers & kids and coated a member of my depots train which was in the DS platform with bits & bobs too, he still has nightmares about it.
I know a two drivers who between them have racked up 10, they're so hardened to it now, they just have a couple of days to a week off, then straight back out on the track as if nothing's happened to them.
I've no doubt I'll cop my second one sometime in the future, I'm of the firm belief that it's a career hazard, apart from the one I've had I've been lucky in that I've either been just in front of the one it's happened to or a few behind.
The only time its really narked me was when I saw a guy at Hersham on the US platform a fair while ago now, he looked agitated as I sped past on the UF line, I really didn't know what to do, so I didn't say anything about it, it was only when I got to Waterloo, did I find out that he'd jumped in front of a up Basingstoke service doing 80mph.
It was only then did I feel really guilty about NOT saying anything & thinking if I had, he'd still been alive. When I racing through there at 90mph I still think of that day.
As it turned out the man concerned was suffering from severe depression after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, so in a way he got blessed release, but not without inflicting severe shock on the driver & the passengers on the platform who witnessed it.
We will never know what's going on inside the minds of those who decide to use the train or railway to kill themselves, the pain, anguish & despair must be way beyond the comprehension of almost everyone bar psychotherapists, psychologists & others who know all about the internal workings of the brain.
Like I said I just wish that they choose a different way to end their lives instead of destroying others.
I know that may sound utterly callous & selfish, but I think that I & every member of traincrew have a right to be when it comes to that, I/we don't want to be involved & I/we don't want to face the wrath of the next of kin.