Selfish suicides

Much has been written about, and speculated about, the mental state of Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot who deliberately crashed his plane full of passengers. He'd apparently researched suicide methods and had written about his wish to be remembered for the dramatic nature of his death. This reminded me of the words of the American trans-gender teenager Leela Alcorn, who wrote in her blog, "My death needs to mean something." She walked into traffic and was killed by a random motorist. She presumably meant that her death should attract attention to the bullying that she and others like her had suffered, and to a large extent it did, but it was also significant because she didn't appear to have considered its effect on the man who killed her. If he had swerved to avoid her and caused a pile-up, other people may have been killed too. In a previous post about suicides, there's a link to a news report from America in which a would-be suicide drove his car into a school bus; on that occasion, no one was seriously hurt.

The Lubitz story has attracted a lot of attention because he killed 149 people by his action, resulting in irrelevant reports about his pregnant girlfriend and other trivia, as well as calls for more care about the selection of flight crew. In hindsight, it seems absurd that airlines should have introduced reinforced doors to the flight deck that can't be opened from the outside in response to the 9/11 terrorist attack, without considering the potential for just such a tragedy as the Lubitz one, which left the pilot helplessly hacking at an impenetrable door with an axe. The odds against such an event happening again are enormous, and flying is still far safer than travelling by car, but this is little comfort to the thousands with a fear of flying.

The point of this post is that the Lubitz case is especially remarkable because of the scale of the deaths, people he didn't know or care about, but there are many other cases of suicide that put innocent people at risk of death or of trauma that affects their mental health, in some cases even leading to their suicides. As I've written before, suicides are notoriously oblivious to the effect that their death, and the methods that they choose, will have on other people. Taking an overdose of a prescribed drug may seem relatively less likely to cause harm to others, apart from the grief that friends and relatives may suffer, but it's not necessarily that simple. I once did a funeral for a woman who took an overdose of Paracetamol, not realising that it can cause a slow death if not caught in time - the stomach must be pumped quickly. By the time she began to regret her action, a day or two after she'd taken the tablets, and walked into the local A & E, the damage was done. All her family could do was watch her die over the following couple of weeks.

Mental illness drives people inward, preoccupied by their own feelings and fears. I've been criticised for describing some suicides as "selfish", which has been called judgemental, but the dictionary defines selfish as "lacking consideration for other people," which is a statement of fact. What could be more selfish than wishing to be remembered for the manner of your death, rather than how many people you killed in the process? The only answer that I can think of to such a problem is to be alert to the state of mind of those close to you, and seek help if it alarms you. The Lubitzs of this world must be scrutinised even more closely, since they're so dangerous. Better by far that they should be restrained, physically or chemically, than that they should be free to live out their lethal fantasies.

Leela Alcorn's killer - what about him?

You might imagine that, of course, losing someone to suicide will deeply affect the people closest to the person who died. I've conducted funerals for people who've taken an overdose or slit their wrists, both deeply shocking for the friend or relative who found them. But sometimes the people most deeply affected are those who killed the suicides, through no fault of their own.

Over the last week or so the story of Leelah Alcorn has been told on social media. A transgender teenager, she committed suicide by stepping into traffic and being hit by a tractor and trailer.

On Sunday, just before 2:30 a.m., Alcorn walked 4 miles from her middle-class Kings Mills neighborhood with its views of Kings Island to Interstate 71. There, she was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer. The highway was closed for more than a hour.

While I have every sympathy with Leela's mother, and with all her friends and relatives, and I share the feeling that it was a tragedy that she chose to die because of her circumstances, I also feel that one other person's trauma has been largely ignored; the driver whose vehicle crushed Leela's body. He will never be able to forget what happened.

Leela is described in a statement from her school as "a sweet, talented, tender-hearted 17-year-old." She wrote in her blog, "My death needs to mean something". She was referring to the prejudice and bullying experienced by people like herself. But this sweet, tender-hearted teen didn't take pills or drown herself; she got someone else to kill her. She didn't think about the effect that might have on him.

Letters to The Age in 2012 reflect the trauma suffered by railway workers whose trains have struck suicides. A front-seat passenger described one fatality,

I will never forget the scream of the driver and the feeling of the train running over the woman's body...

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the nightmares? The anxiety every time you see someone stepping towards the road out of the corner of your eye? In the UK, train drivers who used to be able to claim compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund have lost that right, despite being off work for months or leaving the job altogether, and suffering long-term depression. Nik Douglas, whose train hit a man, described how his life changed in 2012:

For the next six months he was off work with post-traumatic stress. “When I was on my own I’d burst into tears for no reason, I found sleep hard and I’d have flashbacks during the night and day,” he says. “I could be in a room full of people with a really good party atmosphere but feel alone, isolated. That’s one of the biggest things I remember, feeling alone.”

The Samaritans and Network Rail have formed a partnership to try and address the problem, for the benefit of all concerned. Here's their video.

So OK, sympathise with Leela, and others like her, but think of the damage that they've done to other people too. It may have been unintentional, but maybe if more people are aware of the problem it might, just might, prevent copy-cat suicides.

As I wrote in a previous post, suicides are notoriously oblivious to the effect that their actions have on other people.

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Update - BBC Look East news report, 28/1/2015:

Rail minister tells MPs number of rail services affected by suicides in greater anglia area increased from1700 to 8000 in last year
— Andrew Sinclair (@andrewpolitics) January 28, 2015