Rusty’s Blog

Amber had a doctor’s appointment this morning, so I took MARTA to work. I got off the train and made my way toward the office, white earbuds contrasting with my gray shirt and olive green cargo shorts, listening to This American Life on my iPhone. The picture of white hipster douchery could only have been more complete if a friend drove up in a Prius with an Obama sticker on it, stopped and suggested we should totally bail on work to go rock climbing. Or snow boarding.

As I’m about to cross the street, I see a former co-worker of mine from a past job. He’s spastic, but nice enough I guess. He has long hair, speaks with what sounds like a sort of British or maybe Irish accent and spells his name with a Z where an S should be. I ran into him at the same intersection a little over a year ago.

He stops me in the center of the crosswalk as I notice the signal turning from Walk to Don’t Walk.

”What are you doing around six o’ clock tonight?” he asks.

I remove my earbuds and lie.

”We’ll be out.”

”You will?” he asked.

He didn’t sound convinced.

”Yeah, we’re leaving right after work,” I said, not really convincing myself either.

”I’m going to call you this afternoon.”

And so the conversation ended as we both noticed our allotted time to cross the street had long since expired, and with a few more seconds we might start a riot. I was already self-conscience enough about my douchery, and didn’t need to be the guy standing in the center of the crosswalk blocking traffic. People who do that are assholes.

He called just now, but I didn’t answer the phone. He didn’t leave a voicemail. I’m vaguely curious what could be so important that he would stop traffic to tell me about it and ask me to show up after I hadn’t seen him in a year or so. But not that curious.

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.