Gina Gentile (L), Vanessa Dorwart (R)
I needed to get from New York to Washington, D.C. for a business meeting but a massive snow storm was set to slam into the Northeast. I thought the meeting would be canceled. It wasn’t, so a trip aboard Amtrak’s high speed Acela train seemed the best bet.
As two colleagues and I were strategizing we felt a bump and heard a cracking sound. There were murmurs of, “We must have hit a patch of ice,” and “I think it was a big tree branch on the track.” Then the train stopped dead.
There we sat for two hours in Norwood, Pennsylvania watching the snow fall outside our windows.
Amtrak's High-Speed Acela
The conductor announced we might have to transfer trains but didn’t explain why. Then, we saw police outside. Slowly word spread throughout the train, which I verified with a quick internet search. Our train had struck and killed two girls on the track!
It wasn’t ice or branches but human bodies coming in contact with an object traveling at 110 miles an hour that had made that terrible sound. I’m sure every parent on-board was thinking, as I was, of their own children.
What were girls doing on the track on a school day and in the snow? An early internet story quoted a ticket agent who said he’d seen the girls arguing when he went out for a smoke and one had been on a cell phone just before our train roared by.
My mind quickly went to the possibility of suicide. I’d read about a trend of suicide-by-train among teenagers in California. In the affluent town of Palo Alto, California last year four students from Gunn High School took their lives by deliberately stepping in front of speeding trains. Earlier this month a high school girl in Pleasanton, California did the same.
The Train Always Wins
Yet experts in the fields of child psychology say its best not to talk too much about teen train suicide lest other unstable youths become copy cats. And too much media coverage, they maintain, can romanticize suicide to disturbed teens.
Within two days of 16 year old Gina Gentile and 15 year old Vanessa Dorwart being struck by our train Pennsylvania authorities announced the cause of their deaths was suicide. The girls had been despondent over the death of Gina’s 17 year old boyfriend, Bill Bradley. He’d been struck by a car and killed while riding his bicycle to Gina’s house five weeks earlier. They just couldn’t shake their grief.
There had been a third girl on the tracks that awful day but she made the last minute decision not to join in her friend’s final fatal embrace as they stepped in front of the train. She provided investigators with crucial information and police believe the suicide pact may have involved up to seven students.
Vanessa’s parents say their daughter had everything to live for and was planning both her upcoming sweet 16 birthday party and a nursing career. A quick check of her Facebook page would have given them a clue about her state of mind.
Two days before she committed suicide Vanessa wrote: “I just wanna be happy again. Not the fake smile my real one.”
Gina’s last posts on her boyfriend’s memorial site and on her own Facebook page also speak volumes.
Our Train After the Accident - photo by Diane Dimond
“Bill, life without you here is not going to be the same. Save a spot for me, Pumpkinn.” On the one month anniversary of Bill’s death Gina wrote, “I wish there was something or some way to heal the hurt & pain. But there isn’t. My heart is broken & a piece will be missing until the day we meet again. I miss you terribly Bill.”
Police needed to inspect our train after the accident and we finally transferred to another for the trip into Washington. As a journalist I couldn’t fail to go to the front of the train to see what inspectors would see. It was a horrifying site with the fiberglass nose of the train pock-marked by the indention of the girl’s bodies. I could envision the moment just before and the actual point of impact and I shuddered.
I hear the expert’s advice but I think we should talk about the kind of acts our most anguished children are driven to. We need to have a public conversation about these tragedies. Believe me, our kids are talking about it amongst themselves without regard to what language might influence others. We need to communicate with them on their level – on every level – we possibly can.
Photo by Diane Dimond
If we don’t have open dialogue about how to handle death, disappointment and emotional pain, if we don’t communicate about the horrors suicide leaves behind for survivors then we deny our kids knowledge and perspective that might save them. We also fail to instill in them the empathy for others that might – just might – make them think twice before taking such a final, deadly step.
As Vanessa’s mother cried out at a recent track-side vigil, “I just want my daughter back!”
NOTE TO READERS: Now, for the important stuff. From the web site TeenSuicideStatistics.com Please, pass it on.
Signs that your teenager may attempt suicide:
It is important to be on the look out for signs that your teen may attempt suicide. What is so difficult about some of these warning signs of teen suicide is that some of them are similar to normal adolescent behavior. The teenage years are a trying time, and sometimes normal behavior looks a lot like possibly destructive behavior. But it doesn’t hurt to look into the following warning signs of teen suicide:
- Talks about death and/or suicide (maybe even with a joking manner).
- Plans ways to kill him or herself.
- Expresses worries that nobody cares about him or her.
- Has attempted suicide in the past.
- Dramatic changes in personality and behavior.
- Withdraws from interacting with friends and family.
- Shows signs of depression.
- Shows signs of a substance abuse problem.
- Begins to act recklessly and engage in risk-taking behaviors.
- Begins to give away sentimental possessions.
- Spends time online interacting with people who glamorize suicide and maybe even form suicide pacts.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Diane,
Years ago, I tried to sell a book about a 12-year-old girl hanging herself in her middle school restroom. I thought it was an important story to tell. Editors did too, but they all turned me down. The rejections weren’t based on my writing. In fact, the majority of the editors said my proposal was beautifully written. The rejections were based on the fact that they couldn’t handle dealing with such a topic. At least that’s what they wrote in their letters — “I, personally, cannot handle this story.” They’d follow that with a comment about how they hoped someone else would publish the book because, like I said above, they thought it was an important story to be told. So many lives could be saved if we’d talk about suicide, if we’d point out the warning signs, give answers for how to help … Thank you for trying to help save lives.
Suzy
Facebook Friend Mike Clemens writes:
” I have a daughter, 15, Diane. That is an incredible story. Thank-you.”
Facebook Friend Kenneth R Martin writes:
” Tragically this story is too close to home….”
Ken,
I sincerely hope I didn’t open up any fresh pain for you.
I also hope everyone who reads this columnn sits down and talks about it with a young person in their life.
Tell them how suicide solves nothing and leaves loved ones in so much torment. But most of all we have to teach our young people that no matter how bleak life gets – it will always get better.
Hedda Muskat writes:
” Can you do a documentary about this? It’s so important and you’re the perfect person for it!”
Hedda:
You read my mind! I’m working on it. ~ DD
Charlotte Perry Aguilar writes:
“Sadly this is nothing new. There were two young people who took their own lives this way, in separate incidents in my hometown, when I was growing up in southern California in the 1960s.”
Another Facebook Friend (who wants to be anonymous) wrote:
“My son is 25 is has not been able to find a job since he was laid off a year ago. He lives at home and has a college degree and says, “who’s going to hire me when there are people with families that have no jobs?”
I was so afraid he was getting depressed I drove him a little crazy saying. “please tell me if you think you need help!” and I begged him not to think of killing himself because I would be devastated, that I loved him so much and would support him and that things will turn around.
Thank God he told me he would never do that but that he is bummed because what does he have to offer a future wife or when most of his friends who didn’t go to college are living on their own and getting married.
We had a very good friend of ours kill himself and his wife and daughter because of loss of income and he was well to do 3 years ago. It is scary . My husband is a Attorney who did mostly Real Estate we went through all our savings and retirement keeping his practace going while he taught himself Business Law .
People are desperate and children are feeling it also.
I am sorry you had be right there it must have been so awful. My heart goes out to their Mothers also.”
Facebook friend Kilburn Hall writes:
” Here in Chicago they refer to it as “Suicide by Metra.”
Facebook Friend Steve Forrest writes:
” Bad Economy = Loss of Jobs = Deep Depression = Fast, Easy Solution to One’s Problems = Suicide. This type of suicide is becoming very common in last year. I heard about one a few months ago resulting from a jumper on Long Island railroad or NJ transit tracks …”
Facebook friend Ed Schiappa writes:
” It’s sad when suicide is the only solution to to a very real problem. There had to be some warning signs others could have picked up, but unfortunately, people are afraid to get involved. We, as a people, need to be more concerned about our youth and listen more clearly to them when we think there is a problem, or the results could be deadly.”
Facebook Friend Jesse Trecco-Alexander writes:
” Definitely know what it must feel like for the families. If only these people realized there is help out there for them.”
I’m glad to see that here (unlike your Journal article) you have a list of warning signs, but it is lamentable that you do not site any resources that offer a wealth of information about suicide, including guides as to how to talk to your children and access help for them and you. I recommend the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, http://www.afsp.org, and the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, http://www.sptsnj.org/. These and other reputable organizations agree it is a disservice to all concerned to portray a suicide as being caused by one distressing event, such as a breakup or a lost job, without referencing the fact that well over 90% of suicides have underlying (and often long-term and under-treated) mental illness and/or substance abuse issues. Additionally, these organizations very much encourage that people talk to children honestly about suicide, as opposed to how you portray experts advising the opposite. The National Institutes of Mental Health do offer a media guide which does not seek to silence the media, but does discourage the kind of sensationalistic coverage such as you’ve written here. I suggest you do some research and view the fine documentaries already available on the subject by the aforementioned organizations before setting out to create one of your own.
I found your e-mail in my spam file for some reason – and I’m glad to finally publish it here. As you can plainly see there are all sorts of views expressed here and links from readers about where interested parties can go to find more information.
I categorically discard your label that my column constitutes “sensationalistic coverage.” I tried hard, in the mere 800 words allowed me, to express the shock, real life effect and sadness of teen suicide. I’d long been researching death-by-train by teens and for me to find myself on such a train was extremely emotional for me. I reject your characterization that I somehow wrote about the topic dispassionately or in a sensational manner.
Also – I certainly didn’t know the two teens well enough to label them (as you seem to) as suffering from “mental illness and/or substance abuse(rs)”
Take my story for what its worth. If you find it unworthy I’m saddened by that. ~ DD
Debra Landau responds to my response:
“Let me first commend you for posting a comment that is not complimentary. Let me clarify my position. I never accused you of being dispassionate – quite the opposite. I did not label these girls as suffering from mental illness or addiction, nor did I suggest you do so. Rather, I feel you have a responsibility to put in context what is known about suicide in general (however briefly your editors will allow). You claim you do not know these girls, yet in the article you clearly state that they were moved to kill themselves over the death of a boyfriend, without even hinting that maybe more was going on in their lives. In the article you label teens who contemplate killing themselves (and by extension the two girls) as “unstable youths,” “disturbed teens,” and “anguished children.” This is less inflammatory to you than one line about how suicide is often the very painful result of untreated depression, even in teens? One mention in your (print) article of an organization like the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide would have been truly helpful in giving people a resource in case they know a teen and/or a family needing accurate information and sound advice.”
From web site Reader Ret. Lt. Col. Ken Allard:
“Diane – I was deeply moved and more than little horrified by your column. Like you, I once was a regular rider on Acela trains, commuting to TV or speaking dates between DC and NYC; my beloved daughter, now in her 20’s lives in Philly. No parent could read your words and fail to shudder.
But what you wrote is typical of what children – and teenagers are still in that category – face every single day. Their environment is far more toxic and infinitely more lethal that the one I grew up with in the 1950’s. Coming of age in the mid- 60’s, the greatest trouble I ever witnessed was when my college room-mate was arrested for underage consumption of alcohol, spending the night in jail as his family arrived for Parents’ Weekend. However embarrassing, that mini-hiccup was nothing compared to the tragedy you wrote about.
In our family, we are currently going through the slow death that cancer sometimes brings – in this case a 42-year old nephew with two teenage sons. Jesse became a Christian last year and so his sons are seeing the fundamental changes that spiritual conversion brings – literally that “everything becomes new.” Given the personal challenges he is facing, there is a priceless security in the knowledge that the death of a believing Christian is simply a step from one world to another. As I tell him frequently: death is easy, it’s living that is the hard part. Your column reminded me that this point needs to be constantly reinforced with those two precious boys who must bear the coming loss of their father in intensely personal ways.
If there is good news, it is this. At our church in San Antonio, last weekend’s praise service was entirely conducted by our teenagers – to audiences of 3500 people at each of three services. Their talents were simply stunning: drama, dance and musical performances so professional yet so moving that they became their own irrefutable testimony. No wonder that they were interrupted by standing ovations and marked by tears of pure joy.
You know me best as a soldier but as a Christian I have also learned that you don’t wait for the enemy to attack what you hold dearest – because he surely will. Instead, you have to build faith one soul at a time and one step at a time. Because none of can know when that ultimate test will be upon us.
Hugs to you and your readers”
DD Web Site Reader Anonymous (Member of Law Enforcement)
“Regarding your most recent (column) on teen suicide: I had to give a Mom back the clothing items of her daughter who hanged herself from a tree. I had them stored in evidence until the investigation was deemed a suicide and no suspicious circumstances. She apparently was a wonderful student and beautiful girl. It was so sad and difficult to meet with her Mom …..” and I have a lot of experience talking with people who have lost a loved one. We also have one of the highest suicide rates off of our local bridges) We’ve had kids and people of all ages jump and die from there. We’ve even had some travel from out of town to jump off of there. I guess they think they’ll enjoy the view on the way down.
Of course, if the deputies get there in time, they too are at risk and one of our more petite deputies almost went over trying to pull a suicidal man back. They did keep him from jumping but it was frightening to watch the COBAN car video on that one as you could see, in the struggle, that the female deputy’s center of gravity was not going to keep her from going over. Another deputy on scene actually was able to tip the weight back onto the road!
I recently received an e-mail from a man who tried to commit suicide by jumping off of a bridge over water. I think it was somewhere back east. He somehow survived and lectures about it now. What really struck me is that he said people think if they jump off a bridge it will feel like they are flying. His description of what you feel and do go through was enough to scare any idea of that way to go, out of my mind….”
Web Site Reader John DeDakis writes:
“Diane…..
Thanks very much for doing this piece. My sister killed herself. She came close to stepping in front of a train, but told me later that she lacked the courage. Instead, she died 12 years later of carbon monoxide poisoning. That incident is the first scene of my novel, “Fast Track” which deals, in part, with suicide-by-train.
I agree with you that the topic of suicide needs to be discussed not denied.
Whenever I’m talking with people who are depressed or blue, I always make it a point to ask them if they’re thinking of taking their life; I want them to know it’s okay to talk about it. In at least one case, being available to listen has resulted in the person changing their mind.
Anyway…. thanks for today’s column – it’s a real public service.
John DeDakis
CNN Senior Copy Editor
“The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer”
Author, “Fast Track”