Two Towns, Two Tragedies

Kent and Auburn are neighboring towns in Washington State, just a bit south of SEA-TAC, the airport serving both Seattle and Tacoma.

Two weeks ago, a 17-year-old girl was hit and killed by an Amtrak train while walking on the tracks in Kent.

Today, in Auburn, a 50-year-old man was struck and killed by another Amtrak train. He, too, was walking on the tracks.

Similar accidents with one thing in common: Both people were talking on cel phones when they were hit.

How sad. How senseless. How stupid.

Trains hit people all the time … people driving around barriers, people not paying attention, people bent on killing themselves.

But what’s lost in all this, and hardly ever covered in the media, is the effect these incidents have on the locomotive engineers. They apply the emergency brakes, they frantically blow the whistle, but that’s all they can do … and most of the time it’s not enough.

Amtrak’s policy is to give the engineer time off and to provide counseling. Some have it in perspective and go on with their lives. Others deal with it, but it’s a struggle that often last for years. A few are simply unable to climb back into the cab again. Ever.

And that’s the real tragedy.