Getting Something Off My Chest

Sorry, this is a little sick but it's just been eating at me and the only way I know to make it stop is just to blog it.

Monday, July 7, the day my boss chewed me out for the last time (actually he got in one more dig) I was feeling jubilant on my way to Rick's house that I had made my decision to quit. I was on top of the world. Then, on my usual route to his place which runs parallel to a railroad for a mile or two I saw a group of police and a K9 unit hanging out on the tracks near an intersection where I'd be stopping for a red light.

When I was approaching I saw 2 of the officers holding up a sheet which could only mean one thing, they were shielding a body from our view. There were a total of about 5 units there and they seemed to be mostly looking at the body laying just off the side of the tracks. When I got close enough I peered behind the sheet as good as I could and couldn't make out anything human, just blob, mass. Then when I stopped I was at the foot end and definitely saw legs in blue jeans and feet with boots, laying in a normal position.

When I got to Rick's I mentioned the Dead Guy (as we have come to call him) and he had seen the same thing about an hour earlier. But the item was under the sheet, was on the tracks and there was an Amtrak train stopped right nearby. But what was under the sheet didn't look human, it was merely a heap.

Rick did a little research on the local news websites and could find only information mentioning that it was a suicide and had been witnessed. The witness called 911.

Being that this was a local event it ended up in our local newspaper, the Auburn Reporter. This is an excerpt from that article:

"A 40-year-old Auburn man was struck and killed by an Amtrak passenger train Monday afternoon on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks at 3700 B St. N.W. in Auburn.

The Auburn Police Department said the man took his own life, so the Auburn Reporter is not disclosing his name.

Eyewitnesses told police the man had been watching the tracks at the stoplight at 3:25 p.m. when he approached, laid his head on the rails and was struck by the train traveling at 70 miles per hour. A passing motorist saw what happened and called 911. Valley Regional Fire Authority firefighters responded and found the man dead north of the intersection next to the tracks."

I'm sorry, I told you it was sick. I can't imagine a creepier (although it's probably about the quickest and most painless) way to do oneself in.

I feel for the witnesses, Dead Guy's gone but they have to live with his death in their mind's eye the rest of their lives. Eww.