A Comrade of mine drives suburban/regional trains for a living. They got their own in-house therapists, because having to scrub the remains of yet another human body off your train's underbody is just another day at work for them. It's grim for sure.
I remember trying to do some kind of report on deaths on the subway and reading that our subway system doesn't report how many suicides there are because there's so many that they think it would cause more people to do it. Truly dark stuff.
"Nope, ain't got an inkling of how many people have thrown themselves in front of our trains within the past business year, because, uuh... whatever, have you ever read Goethe's Werther?"
Tell me it's been appallingly many without telling me how many it's been, this is... let's call it impressive.
I applied for a train conductor job, and they told us right away that suicides happen and probably to everyone. They mentioned that the train driver won't look at the scene because it's traumatizing enough, as there isn't time to pull the brakes. So, it's the conductor who deals with the situation.
However, colour me impressed by their honesty, I could've imagined just as well that stuff like this might be something they'd rather not be overly upfront about.
But then again, while that info alone will certainly put several candidates off, they can at least say "told ya" afterwards, so 🤷♀️
Yeah, It's a part of dealing with the whole situation and trauma when it happens—they are as ready as they can be.
And we are in Finland, where we have our 'fair share' of suicides. Even though we were able to reduce those numbers, I'm sure they will rise again, unfortunately.
ffs, I moved from mid-southern Germany to far-northern Germany a couple of years ago - circa 3°33' difference in latitude. Still can easily tell how differently the winter blues gets to people down there vs up here...
am I safe to guess that SAD might constitute a huge suicide factor in Finland?
I cannot say for sure, but it does affect people. About 1-2% have seasonal depression and 20-30% experience some kind of symptoms (tiredness, sweet tooth, weight gain). And that after year after year after year while our warm sun periods are so short..
