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Do
kill yourself, just don't do it on my time
For
this week's article, instead of writing
about politics like I normally do, I have
decided to put forth a kind of public service
announcement.
With
the increasing number of public suicides
or suicide attempts taking place in recent
years, I felt it was necessary to make a
message clear to the public, and it is a
message that has needed to be said for a
long time. The message is as follows: if
you are depressed, feeling down or suffering
from a terminal disease that would lead
you to contemplate suicide, please do it
in the privacy of your own home, because
the general public, including myself, doesn't
give a damn about your personal problems.
Last
Wednesday morning, a 25-year-old Compton
man named Juan Manuel Alvarez parked his
sport utility vehicle on the Glendale Metrolink
train tracks wanting to end his life. He
exited the vehicle at the last minute, causing
the oncoming train to strike Alvarez's car,
derail and collide into another train. According
to KCAL 9 news, 11 people were killed and
over 200 were injured in Alvarez's suicide
attempt. Instead of killing yourself, Juan,
you killed 11 others and injured hundreds.
That had nothing to do with your insignificant
problems. Thanks, asshat; because of scum
like you, people who wanted to live were
killed.
This
story reminded me of another public suicide
attempt during the summer of 2001 by a disturbed
woman named Angela Song, who stood on the
ledge of the Lake Washington ship canal's
bridge in Seattle, and threatened to jump.
This particular selfish idiot parked her
car on a busy section of Interstate-5 during
morning rush-hour traffic, got out and stood
on the bridge. Three hours later she finally
jumped, but the jump didn't kill her. Seattle
Police Chief John Diaz, in a statement to
KOMO-TV shortly after the incident, said,
"We had motorists, truckers...people
in a Metro bus...screaming at her to jump."
That is exactly the point I am making here:
nobody cares about your personal problems,
and when you tie up people in traffic or
kill others because of your own trivial
existence, it pisses the rest of us off.
Apparently
what Alvarez did is not entirely uncommon.
According to KCAL 9 news, in Germany "there
are 18 suicides by train every week"
and "one in 10 survives the attempt."
Also according to KCAL 9, "The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention report
that 112 people nationwide killed themselves
using buses, trains and subways in 2002."
Alvarez,
who had stab wounds on his chest and marks
on his wrists where he had tried to slit
them, was taken to a psychiatric ward where
he will probably live a relatively easy
life, which is unfortunate for the families
and friends of the victims who were killed
and injured by the lunatic. Can't we throw
away the rules this once, and allow them
to have their way with Alvarez?
The
next time you are feeling suicidal, please,
take a shotgun to your head or hang yourself
in the privacy of your own home, because,
as I said earlier, the rest of us don't
want to be tied up or inconvenienced by
your pathetic problems. It is because of
stories like last Wednesday's train derailment
that I really long for the days when Dr.
Jack Kevorkian was still in practice.
Gerry
Wachovsky is a senior broadcast journalism
major at CSULB and the Diversions editor
of the Online 49er.
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