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Last year, I killed a man

lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk — At 9.45am on Saturday, June 23 2007, I killed a man. A perfectly ordinary man, on a perfectly ordinary summer's day. CCTV pictures show him entering the station, unremarkable among all the passengers going to the West End. He waited at the front of the platform until he could hear my train approaching, then he calmly stepped down on to the tracks..

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 20, 2008

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407 Comments

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  • inactive, on 07/19/2008, -16/+530Suicide : A permanent solution, to a temporary problem.

    Sad and I feel for the train driver as he will have those images for the rest of his life.
  • LordoftheFly, on 07/19/2008, -23/+498He didn't even have AIDS; he should have waited for the test results.

    But then again.. I hate waiting for food to heat up in the microwave.
  • orangederange, on 07/19/2008, -40/+420He didnt kill the man, nor did he assist in the suicide. The man was ill, he needed help.
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -38/+229He paused for a heartbeat, looked at his watch and said, "So, how long before we get on the move again?"
    some people are such ***** its not even funny anymore
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -10/+192Here is something you can't understand.......
  • victor22, on 07/20/2008, -20/+182I'm not a fan of big articles, but this one is just awesome. I dont care MrBabyMan was the submitter, i'm still digging it!
  • rypic7, on 07/20/2008, -1/+157you clearly didn't get the story. the person who wrote it isn't an idiot. he knows that he did not technically kill the man. but that doesn't stop the guilt and horror of the experience. you try conducting a train that crushes someone to death and i am sure that you'll wish you had more than 60 seconds to edit digg comments.
  • JohnsonGotOwned, on 07/20/2008, -18/+149http://imagechan.com/img/3066/

    I sent that into the "Experiences" thing. I'm dead serious. I typed it all up, and sent it in.
  • Alphax45, on 07/20/2008, -3/+122That was actually very deep and real. Dugg
  • victor22, on 07/20/2008, -6/+118how i could just kill a man?
  • aphexcoil, on 07/20/2008, -5/+116It isn´t like the guy started screaming for the conductor to get moving. He sounded polite to me.

    Unfortunately, the whole of society can't stop their day just because some sick dude jumps in front of their train.
  • HowDoYouSayThat, on 07/20/2008, -1/+110For the first time being a procrastinator would have really, realllly paid off
  • raydeen, on 07/20/2008, -2/+111No, the 'guy' killed the guy. Or if you must be 'technical', momentum and an unthinking, unfeeling and unforgiving engine of metal killed the guy.
  • sanman, on 07/20/2008, -2/+107trains can't stop on a dime, they take awhile to slow down
  • britblogger, on 07/20/2008, -3/+92powerful and somber story.
  • DeskFlyer, on 07/20/2008, -10/+95MrBabyMan, as much as certain people dislike him, did not "steal" anything. You people complaining about him monitoring Reddit and submitting the stories that make is popular over there is like complaining about your local newspaper "stealing" stories from the AP, which they all mirror. It's the internet, which was invented to share information as efficiently as possible. So shut the ***** up already, both of you.
  • Speed, on 07/20/2008, -0/+81Doesn't make him feel any better.
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -9/+81You are a rationalist because you can sob, and god dammit life is REAL, and finite!

    "I left work and went home in the full realisation that perhaps I am not such a rationalist after all, because I sobbed my heart out in the arms of my partner"

    Amazing ***** snapshot of humanity this article is.
  • diemunkiesdie, on 07/20/2008, -2/+64Remarkable that the driver was able to stay so calm and collected. I hadn't really thought of them being trained for this kind of stuff.
  • mattlohkamp, on 07/20/2008, -0/+62no, technically, the several tons of metal killed the guy. The driver couldn't have stopped it - he even tried to stop it, but was unable to. That's a lot of momentum.
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -6/+67Yeah, and some of us deal with dark stressful ***** up situations by using dark humor. Deal.
  • GregFD3S, on 07/20/2008, -0/+58I always open the microwave when there is 5-10 seconds left.
  • synik, on 07/20/2008, -33/+89the person who jumped in front of the train was the biggest ***** of all.
  • hektur, on 07/20/2008, -40/+96These comments are remarkably *****.
  • lutiana, on 07/20/2008, -2/+58Wow, most of you totally missed the point of this. The technicality of it is irrelevant. As far as the train driver is concerned he killed the guy and more traumatic to him is the fact that he could do NOTHING to prevent it.
  • cmapes2, on 07/20/2008, -2/+56Thank you for countering the depression that was inflicted from reading the main story.
  • iJessicaRabbit, on 07/20/2008, -1/+53I commute into Chicago every day and am friends with a bunch of conductors. They have so many stories about suicides on their trains. I was always shocked by how they become almost numb to them. I mean some of the details about train deaths... really really gruesome :( I feel awful for everyone involved.

    The commuters can be even worse. On the first day commuting in I had someone tell me that the chances for a delay during the spring is higher becuase, "spring is suicide season". That just didn't ring right to me.
  • KOSmurfy, on 07/20/2008, -0/+51It never hurts to ask.
  • fuhlavaflave, on 07/20/2008, -5/+55The man needed assistance. I'm more sorry for him than angry.
  • WillJS, on 07/20/2008, -1/+47..... ok ya got me.
  • scottsutherland, on 07/20/2008, -2/+46Definitely a powerful story from a point of view we don't usually see. Another point of view I'd like to see is that of the people who have to clean the mess up.
  • HerbertWest, on 07/20/2008, -1/+42In my darkest hour I didn't know that my brightest days were ahead.
  • adeadwaffle, on 07/20/2008, -3/+44And yours isn't? Try contributing if you think the comments are so bad instead of just being a useless critic.
  • TheMidnight, on 07/20/2008, -0/+40You don't get charged with vehicular manslaughter if someone jumps out in front of you. It would only be a charge if your negligence, recklessness or maliciousness constituted the cause of death. If you were speeding, drunk, or you ran a red light, you would get the charge depending on the jurisdiction.
  • cassarani, on 07/20/2008, -1/+39[citation needed]
  • FatLoser, on 07/20/2008, -0/+34your comment is a temporary observation to a permanent problem
  • Chalks777, on 07/20/2008, -2/+36Pun intended?
  • HardwareWeenie, on 07/20/2008, -1/+34A few weeks ago I was driving to work at about 9AM, a person had just jumped on to a local freeway from the overpass. I came around the bend in the road and saw the cars slowing down and thought, oh there must be something in the road OH GOD IT'S A PERSON. Fortunately he died on impact and people stopped before they ran over him. There were numerous people stopped and let just say none of them could help. I later read that he had tried to get ran over on the overpass and everyone kept swerving to miss him. When someone tried to help him, he ran up the fence and jumped on to the freeway. Yes, this guy was sick and needed help, yes he inconvenienced a lot of people, yes I feel sorry for his family.
  • DeskFlyer, on 07/20/2008, -2/+35Think of it this way - who had to suffer and live with the psychological effects of knowing they were directly involved with ending a person's life - the train driver or the guy who jumped on the tracks? Yeah the dude needed help but you are going to off yourself, leave other people's lives out of it.
  • RomeyRome, on 07/20/2008, -5/+37Better that jumping off of an overpass & into someone's windshield.
  • InfernoX, on 07/20/2008, -10/+41It makes more sense to permanently solve a problem than to only temporarily solve it.

    Besides, temporary is relative.
  • ouzome, on 07/20/2008, -1/+31well said, I don't even visit Reddit so I don't care.
  • freqk, on 07/20/2008, -3/+33Wow. This is deeply deeply moving.
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -1/+30Your comment makes me realize my life is so much better than yours. Thanks.
  • urbano35, on 07/20/2008, -1/+30No that's not crazy, that's just the type of life some people live with and yet can go by you so unnoticed.
  • kinerry, on 07/20/2008, -1/+29You obviously haven't taken the tube

    This ***** is a daily occurance and it gets tiring real fast.
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -1/+27No, technically...
    Ok, can we stop this retarded conversation about who or what "technically" killed the guy?

    It's totally irrelevant to the point of the story.
  • EatChex89, on 07/20/2008, -1/+27That might have been on of the most depressing parts of the story.
  • inactive, on 07/20/2008, -12/+36***** you man.
  • Sarevok9, on 07/20/2008, -2/+26Thats the issue with people who suffer from mental illness, when you try to calm them down, or to reassure them they get more and more distraught. Sometimes medication is the answer, but more often then not just talking to a person can help.

    This story seemed like just another lame thing (I was expecting a fresh-prince again) but honestly part of me really feels for the driver, and Henrik. Hopefully something like this doesn't happen to one of your friends or loved ones.
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