The Treatment for Shock
John Mack is a Tube Driver on London’s underground. (Written on iPhone while traveling)
John Mack leads a good life, happily married to his first love for over twenty years.
John drives subway trains and has done most all his adult life and is well-liked by coworkers for his placid temperament and sense of humor.
John only sees life from a positive angle and is seldom down.
That’s not to say John doesn’t have down days. With his long experience in this kind of work, John hears stories from other long-serving drivers about jumpers. Those people who choose to take their own lives by falling in front of moving trains.
One such story is about a fellow driver who had a woman jump in front of the train he was driving, he was so badly shaken up after receiving medical attention that night for the shock suffered would then receive weeks of therapy, provided and paid for by London Transport.
The driver, however, told his workmates that he wanted to deal with the tragedy in his own way. That night, the same driver hung himself in his garage.
Since then, train drivers who are unfortunate enough to witness or are involved in such tragedies are kept in a hospital for observation, where they receive professional help.
John starts his early shift at 5:00 am and is generally finished by lunchtime. After checking on his wife’s mood, he might get in a quick nine holes of golf.
But today, John is excited to get home. Tottenham Hotspur are playing, and the match is set to be broadcast on TV, a London derby against their oldest rivals, Arsenal.
Just as John is about to arrive at the station before his shift ends, emerging from the tunnel, a figure leapt in front of the train, giving John no reaction time. He felt a sudden jolt through the train.
It was a moment in time, and John couldn’t be certain if the figure leaping in front of the train were a man or woman — just a life given up in a split second.
John instinctively braked the train, bringing the carriages to a complete stop halfway along the station platform. Only four or five passengers are waiting. One, a woman in her thirties, saw what happened from a hundred feet away out of the corner of her eye because it happened so fast. She was vomiting,
Another waiting passenger is on his cell phone, calling the police and the ambulance services. John is still in his cabin. Calmly but trembling, he asks passengers over the intercom to be patient, that an incident has occurred, and even finds the self-control to apologize.
It doesn’t take long for the police, the fire department and the paramedics to arrive on scene. The transit inspector is on his way.
The police first talk to John and go straight to the driver’s compartment. What John has witnessed will haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
Still sitting in the driver’s chair, John blankly stares out the front window and appears not to hear the officer. John doesn’t blink or move a muscle. It’s as if he is a lifelike statue.
The police officer immediately recognizes the symptoms of shock have set in and steps out to let the paramedics attend to him.
While the paramedics treat John, taking his vitals and reassuring him, John is sinking deeper, and the paramedics decide to get him into the ambulance.
Two paramedics carefully support John under his arms while several policemen stand in a group discussing the nature of the incident. Then, the officer in charge walks toward one paramedic and has a quiet word.
A report is coming through that a woman in the street saw two teenagers had raided a store on the high street, running out with a fully dressed mannequin, which she reported they threw over the bridge onto the railway line.
It was confirmed by rail inspectors that the train had struck a shop mannequin.
The paramedics decided this information should not be made known to John before they stabilized him and informed his family.
In John’s mind, today, and for the rest of his life, it was no dummy.
