VIRGINIA — The psychology of suicide is a queer thing. People
often clean things up before snuffing themselves. They write
letters of apology, shrug off their shoes, leave clothes neatly
folded in a pile. I’m told the single greatest factor that
dissuades would-be jumpers is not the possibility of surviving a
fall but the prospect of their remains being strewn about, all
willy nilly.
So: I’m still trying to decide, several hours removed from the
event, what could have compelled the man to half jump, half dive in
front of the orange line Metro as the train was arriving at the
East Falls Church station. It gummed up rail traffic for hours and
the jumper may even have survived the encounter with the train,
which was slowing down to stop at the station when it plowed into
him.
It’s not an academic question for me: I was heading into work in
the lead car of the train, on the left hand side, staring out the
front window when he jumped. I heard the yells (“Get back! Get
back!”) from the cockpit. I listened to the dull thud and the
screeching of brakes, followed by the sobbing of the heavyset
female driver. I sat there as a few Alpha male types in my car —
including one who claimed he was a stress management specialist —
tried to take charge to calm their mates and fellow passengers, but
really to calm themselves.
After a few minutes of stunned disbelief, one Metro worker came
down the inside of the train and manually opened doors so that
passengers could get out. We exited onto the platform without any
clear idea of where to go from there, and the barely audible PA
system was not helpful.
Metro employees with florescent yellow and orange vests poured
into the station; several of them tried to console the driver.
Firemen entered via the escalator, backed people away the front of
the train, and began to crawl around underneath to find the
body.
I asked the point woman for the fire department if they needed
witnesses and was told to go wait next to the driver. A nervous
Metro employee — a middle-aged man who was being pulled in several
different directions at once — asked a few questions to determine
if I had, in fact, seen the man jump. Satisfied, he requested to
see my ID and then ushered me down the escalator to fill out a
statement. From the top of the rotating stairs, I saw a flashlight
beam between the first and second cars, and heard a fireman yell
that he’d found the body, and that the guy was alive, but
stuck.
Waiting and jurisdiction shuffling commenced. I started filling
out a report for the local station, on lime green paper, leaning
over one of the turnstiles for a flat surface. Then a cop for the
Metro Police arrived with a different, more official form, which
catalogued, among other things, my phone number, date of birth, and
Social Security number.
The officer brought me into a back room with a chair and flat
table, asked for my identification again, and said that if I didn’t
mind he’d hold on to my driver’s license while I filled out the
report. I did mind but, under the circumstances, I bit my
tongue and sat down to write.
My account was brief. I figured Metro Police would want to know
(a) where I was when I saw the jumper, (b) if the driver had acted
properly (yes), and (c) whether the man was pushed (emphatically
no). Beyond that, they had my number. I waited for a few minutes
for the officer to return, then decided to go looking for him.
The aforementioned Metro worker — he of the green form —
hailed another Metro police officer, who determined that I had, in
fact, given them enough information. He directed me back to the
train platform to get my ID.
Shortly after I arrived at the top of the escalator, medics
brought the jumper by on a stretcher. He was in his late
forties/early fifties, white, at least six foot, and nearly bald.
Or at least that’s what I thought I could make out. His face was
quite mashed and it’s hard for me to judge height when people are
horizontal and limp.
With the man taken to the hospital, things began to settle back
to normal. On the other side of the police tape, I heard two Metro
grunts planning to scrub the tracks and get things moving again. A
video-cameraman showed up and a blonde newswoman followed not long
after. As I departed on the next train for the office, they didn’t
appear to be in a hurry. For them, it was 30 seconds of filler — a
minute tops — on Tuesday’s nightly news.
