At about 10 p.m. last night, my cell phone rang. It was Thomas.
“Hello there. What are you doing. Like, uh, RIGHT NOW?”
Someone had jumped or fallen onto the track at the Oakland City MARTA station. All northbound trains were halted, and he and his wife Nikki were stuck and needed us to come pick them up. The grainy cell phone photo above is from the scene at the station. It seemed like a dozen emergency vehicles were there for this one person.
For our friends, this was an exhausting and nerve-wracking ordeal. They hadn’t seen, heard or felt the person get hit. They just knew the train had stopped, the power had been shut off and they were stuck there in the dark. Eventually they were told what happened and that they’d be shuttled to another MARTA station. It was obvious that would take several hours, so they called us.
In an odd bit of synchronicity, a couple of weeks ago I’d read an article about a British train operator who saw someone jump on the tracks in front of him. He’d had time to think and to look the person in the eyes before running him over, but was powerless to stop it from happening.
After we dropped Thomas and Nikki off at the North Avenue station, they would be tired, but could get on with their lives. I was left wondering how MARTA train operators get on with theirs if they have to stare into someone’s eyes before running them over, helpless to stop it, as the British operator had been. Whether there’s counseling available to them; whether they’re required or given the option to take some time off.
I’ve emailed MARTA’s press department and asked what the policy is for this circumstance. They responded and said they’d try to find that information, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’ll update this post if/when I do.
Fortunately, the person in this incident lived and is in stable condition.
Yeah, we can’t thank you guys enough for coming out to get us. Thank god you had (two!) maps. As I tweeted, the really weird thing is NO ONE on the platform was losing their crap or anything - we couldn’t even tell what happened at all. No bump, no scream, no bystander reaction, nothing. I’m completely shocked the person survived, the third rail being what it is and the whole train going OVER you bit. Godspeed to her though, and I hope it was just a really bizarrely lucky accident. August 6th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
You guys are the best, no lie. And I don’t even remember getting to the part about asking if you could come and get us. You just heard our situation and made things happen, so thank you.
MARTA seemed to handle the whole thing rather well, at least from the crowd-control aspect. None of us had all the answers, but nobody was panicked. Of course, maybe random collections of people are better at handling unexpected crises than we give them credit. August 6th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
[...] fifteen minutes or so later, our heroes (Rusty and Amber) plucked us from Oakland City and took us to North Avenue Station, a point we were told was far [...] August 8th, 2008 at 2:00 pm