Employees of the railroad average three on the job fatalities, as in, people killed by trains, in their careers.
Conductor Bobby had his third last week, and had to get off the train and search for the body.
I wake up with a knot in my stomach, remembering the previous evening’s activities. I get a call from a counselor from the railroad’s employee assistance program. She says she’s sorry that I had to go through the trauma and asks if I want to come in and discuss my feelings. I thank her for the offer, but tell her that this is my third fatality in my 26 years on the railroad…and that I think I’ll be okay. She encourages me to take three days off (regular procedure whenever crews are involved in a fatality) and I tell her that I will.
They say that railroaders average three fatalities in their career. This was my third and hopefully last fatality. I’m done.
The eminently quotable conductor was also featured in a page one New Haven Register article over the weekend, a story about the infamous Milgram studies involving electric shock that took place at Yale in the ’60s.