http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-burningsuvrescue,0,3976145.story Videotape of the dramatic rescue shot by a bystander shows two men using metal pipes to break the windshield, freeing the woman and her 2-year-old daughter. The woman's 4-year-old son was still trapped inside. This is one of those you don't know what you'd do unless you were in that situation deals, but I would like to think that I would have made sure that my son was out before I left the car. I would leave last... or not alive, but I would be goddamn sure my son got out. I dunno. Just struck me odd when I heard it on the news this morning. And what is the deal with people filming the worst days of people's lives? I hope someone invades them when they are having the worst day of their life. Just like news reporters going to the scene of a house fire (they do it around here) and filming the people react to their house burning down. One guy was crying in his yard. It made me soooo fucking mad and sick and sad.
A 2 year old boy got hit by a school bus, in front of his mother and father as one of his siblings was leaving for school. On the front page of the paper was this boys dad, crumpled to the ground and crying. I'ts unbelievable how uncaring some people can be.
Yeah, some guy over near the place I grew up had his dumb wife (with 5 other people packed into a tiny Geo Tracker) stop at the railroad tracks, back up beacuse the white railroad crossing arms came down on her car, she backed up, panicked because there was no room to back up, so she pulled forward for some reason, and BAM! She got hit by an Aamtrak train. All 6 of em died (including 3 small kids). I remember reading about this, and they had the dad on the front page of the news, crying into his hands and you could tell he was pretty devastated. On a side note, the fucking family wants to sue the city..... Oh well, might as well put up a link to the ridiculous lawsuit. http://www.modbee.com/featured/story/779820.html
That is f'd up. We had one over in SC where a dad was drunk, let his 14 year old drive. They were in a nissan pickup 3 in the front 3 in the back. I think 4 of them died. All the kids were younger than the 14 YO.
But a lawsuit will make it all better. I make my living off the evening news Just give me something-something I can use People love it when you lose, They love dirty laundry Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here I just have to look good, I dont have to be clear Come and whisper in my ear Give us dirty laundry Kick em when theyre up Kick em when theyre down Kick em when theyre up Kick em when theyre down Kick em when theyre up Kick em when theyre down Kick em when theyre up Kick em all around We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who Comes on at five She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam In her eye Its interesting when people die- Give us dirty laundry Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a Running bet Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry You dont really need to find out whats going on You dont really want to know just how far its gone Just leave well enough alone Eat your dirty laundry Kick em when theyre up Kick em when theyre down Kick em when theyre up Kick em when theyre down Kick em when theyre up Kick em when theyre down Kick em when theyre stiff Kick em all around Dirty little secrets Dirty little lies We got our dirty little fingers in everybodys pie We love to cut you down to size We love dirty laundry We can do the innuendo We can dance and sing When its said and done we havent told you a thing We all know that crap is king Give us dirty laundry!
I was thinking of that song. When the whole MJ thing was going down, TMZ had pics of his family IN the hospital and someone commented. "Damn, TMZ, where were you when he was having his heart attack?" (that was back when it was thought to have been a heart attack) Journalists cross the line too many times.
Under extreme duress it can really be strikingly odd how some will behave. If you had a group of well known people the one person expected to take a leading role may simply crumble and fall apart. The one you least expect may stay level headed and simply react in a manner that everyone would admire. You simply never truly know about anyone else or even yourself. When natural instinct takes over people surprise even themselves in both good and bad ways.
I have NO PITY, read: NONE whatsoever when I hear these sob stories of some SOB getting hit by a train. I firmly believe that it takes a conscious act to actually stop your car on the tracks. That's why some of the intersections are built like that, you have to drive up, and roll down - great skill would be required to calculate just how far to pump the brakes in order to balance your center of gravity to actually stop on the tracks. Aside from that - what's the first thing they ask you about trains when you try for a driver's license? The correct answer is "Don't fuck with 'em." Hell, anyone that's ever walked along the railroad tracks in the boonies will tell ya: Those mother fuckers come up on ya fast! If you start to feel the ground shake, in addition to hearing the telltale sound of a train approaching, you'd best be somewhere else. This includes being saddled over the tracks in your car. You must find a way to get either your ass, or your vehicle elsewhere, and it needs to be performed in a knee-jerk fashion. With a Geo Metro, pushing the car in front of you out of the way simply is not an option. They do, however, have a very short wheelbase, and a tight turning radius. If the broad had enough room to back up and then go forward again, she had enough room to instinctively turn the wheel while performing either motion, thereby putting herself, and her vehicle, out of harm's way. The passengers? eeeeh, well, it's unfortunate and all, I suppose, but life is not granted with any guarantees. If it was, maybe 6 people wouldn't have decided to pile into a Geo Metro in the first place. Shit, were they even making Geo Metros as late as '01?
Very well stated Lomo. While it is a tragedy for the rest of the passengers in the car, it is an act of stupidity that the city, nor the railroad, are responsible for. It takes a mile and a half to stop a train, there is a lot of inertia involved and to think that there was something anyone could do about it is crazy. Plus, if I'm not mistaking those arms come down with a good bit of distance before the train is close. The electricity produced by the diesel generators activates them, now if they were in the process of crossing the tracks, with the muffler dragging, touching them, and the train was close enough that the current was able to run up said muffler, thus frying out the on board CPU, and the car was no longer able to move, and it somehow welded the doors shut, then I could see it being the trains fault. They run pretty good in the country, 45-50, but in a metropolitan area they are supposed to run no faster than 35 or so, still pretty fast for something pulling thousands of tons of cargo, well maybe millions of tons. An 18 wheeler total weight can be somewhere around 80,000lbs, or 40 tons (I think thats right) a single train car can hold in excess of 100,000lbs and there are usually well over 20 cars per train, so maybe it would be, who knows it's too early for this much math.
This image is of a train accident about 20 minutes or so from Augusta, in Graniteville, SC. One train was stopped, the other moving at about 50mph. One was loaded with Chlorine tank cars. The crew in the parked train failed to flip the switches while they were waiting for the other train to pass (its one of those splits where the tracks are parralel for a while). They were in the Huddle House eating when it happened. Graniteville is a small town between Aiken and Augusta, I have friends and relatives that live in that area and luckily none were killed. There were 8 or 9 casualties, the engineer almost instantly, and several others trying to get out of the chlorine 'cloud' that was developed as the chlorine leaked out of the rail cars. I am sure over the next 5-10 years there will be a lot more deaths due to the inhalation that some people had, permanent damage to lungs - not fun. Norfolk Southern did a stand up job with the situation, a lot of the houses in the area had to be torn down because of the chlorine damage the fog did as it rolled through. Word of advice - Chlorine spill get as high as you can to get above it, it is a low lying vapor, inhalation can cause permanent damage to lungs. Ammonia will rise, but like chlorine it can kill you quick.
People get hit by trains... my dad was hit my a train when I was like 12 ... its kinda weird because because I wished it would happen (dad is dickhead) My dad just bought an 85 corvette and at this one country railroad crossing if your music is up and it is the right time of day, you look left... look right and the sun is right there, blinding you. My dad said he crossed then BLAM it just got the rear end of it... thing shattered and.. not a scratch on him.. car was totaled .. train did not stop. I guess it was such a little tap... but still fucked up the the car... He was able to reuse all the engine parts. I dont remember much, I just know my dad was really nice for a while... except making me and my brother clean up sharp pieces of car the next day. same tracks killed a couple of kids I went to school with like 3 years later. I am a weirdo when it comes to trains... I have never done the "race" and when I have plenty of time and the bar thingies are blinking but not lowered yet but you can see the train ... I wait... and let the people behind me get pissed off. 2 years ago I had a guy come to my window to say in a mean way "You could have made it!!!" and I looked at him and screamed "my father and grandfather were killed at THIS crossing" haha made him feel like shit. kinda funny I saw him the next day at a gas station... and he was really nice
I have never understood how you could get hit by a train without doing it on purpose. I had a relative get hit and killed when he was in his 20's... probably drunk... or he killed himself. "He had been up town earlier in the evening and according to friends left about midnight for the family home below town. The next AM a newspaper carrier discovered his mangled body on the tracks a short distance above the overhead bridge. He was presumably struck by the Pittsburgh-Kenova passenger train."