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Post by The Lazy One on Mar 26, 2009 4:55:29 GMT -5
I'm very sorry to hear about this. My condolences to you and his family.
(((((dantesvirgil)))))
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Post by Vypernight on Mar 26, 2009 5:33:35 GMT -5
Sorry to hear. My thoughts go out to you and his family.
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Post by m52nickerson on Mar 26, 2009 7:48:47 GMT -5
Sorry to hear that DV.
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Post by dantesvirgil on Mar 26, 2009 8:56:55 GMT -5
I appreciate the sympathy, guys. It feels really weird to lose a student--sort of like losing a coworker, I guess. You're close, but you aren't necessarily friends. You learn a lot about their lives, and you can't help but feel for them. Andrew (my student) lost his brother and his best friend in Iraq last semester, which just knocked his legs from under him. I feel so sorry for his poor mother, who lost both her boys. His two little sisters (under 10) have got to be feeling double whammied, too.
But thank you so much. It means a lot.
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Post by Death on Mar 26, 2009 9:20:04 GMT -5
I'm so sorry. (((((((((DV and andrew's family and friends))))))))))
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Post by erictheblue on Mar 26, 2009 9:27:22 GMT -5
I am so sorry. ((DV))
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Anti-Goth
New Member
IT'S A CONSPIRACY!
Posts: 32
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Post by Anti-Goth on Mar 26, 2009 9:36:01 GMT -5
I'm very sorry this young man was taken from your community so young, DV. It sounds like he was a true artist. My deepest condolences go out to you and his friends and family.
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Post by headache on Mar 26, 2009 10:47:01 GMT -5
Wow, sad story but you have to question the train of thoughts in the now dead man leading up to his death.
How can any sane person put on headphones, crack up the music and go running on railway tracks? What kind of smart logic is behind such a stupid activity?
The one I feel really bad for, is the train engineer who actually drove the train and had no way of avoiding the accident. I have no sympathy or understanding for someone who does something so stupid as the dead guy did.
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Post by Julian on Mar 26, 2009 11:10:56 GMT -5
How can any sane person put on headphones, crack up the music and go running on railway tracks? What kind of smart logic is behind such a stupid activity? It's a hell of a lot safer than doing the same thing in traffic which most people do. He probably assumed he'd hear something. Why he didn't hear the horn's interesting though, he might've cut across at the last minute or something. It's a shitty situation all round, unlike this first guy... www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2002-24.htmloh and here's skyfire + 1... darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1994-14.htmlThey get this a lot, usually it's suicides, kids pushing each other and playing silly buggers at the platform, idiots jumping down to get stuff, joyriders, taggers, drunks taking a shortcut and/or falling asleep on the line. Still sucks! Oh and sorry for your loss DV...
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Post by dantesvirgil on Mar 26, 2009 11:28:54 GMT -5
Andrew was jogging on the tracks through a community with houses and people standing on either side. Likely he thought he'd hear it (I can hear nearly everything when I have my Ipod on) and he probably also expected to feel the train vibrating the tracks, as anyone growing up around a track can tell you happens. Perhaps he was distracted by his brother's death, since he was in WV to visit family and plan some kind of memorial thing for his brother? I don't know. What I do know is that people do stupid stuff all the time like take their eyes off the road to fiddle with the radio station for a couple of seconds and end up in situations where they get into a wreck or accidentally leave an appliance on that ends up burning down the house. And I also know that just because people aren't 100% vigilant 100% of the time (which is an impossible request from any person) it doesn't mean those people and their families don't deserve sympathy nor imply that they somehow deserve what they got.
As his teacher, I can assure you that Andrew was both sane and smart. One incidence of carelessness does not negate either thing. If it did, none of us would be considered either sane or smart.
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Post by headache on Mar 26, 2009 12:05:55 GMT -5
It's just that I get the feeling that we are to exonerate this young man for any responsibility for his own death, for the pain and suffering he inflicted upon the train engineer and his family and make up excuses for what he did.
I lived 40 feet from the main rail line through my home town until I was 16 years old and was instilled from childhood on a respect for the railroad and the tracks just because you don't always feel or hear a train come rumbling down the tracks. There was also a set of steep hilly roads around the area were we kid skied during the winter, but one thing we never did, was to ski down the roads without having anyone in the intersections to make sure the roads were empty. Alas, there were always some kids who thought they didn't need to and they can be found six feet under today while the rest of us are alive.
I'm sorry, but I question the sanity and the train of thoughts in anyone who go playing on railroad tracks, doesn't matter how great a student he was, he failed at life. I know I should be balling over with sympathy but the only sympathy I can manage to muster in this case, is for the train engineer and not for the dead man. You may see me as a monster because of this and I'm fine with that, at least I am alive.
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Post by dantesvirgil on Mar 26, 2009 12:16:10 GMT -5
I'm not sure I understand why you are unable to separate the ability to grieve an accident and the understanding that what he did was careless. I have certainly not suggested that he is free from responsibility for his own death. No one has suggested that. But whether he is responsible or not doesn't mean that people are supposed to grieve less. Making a mistake doesn't make someone insane, and to continue to assert so proves you don't know the definition of the word. Anyone can "fail at life" at any time for simple reasons that lead to big and irreversible conclusions.
If you feel like you're being requested to "ball over" with sympathy, I would like to point out that you chose to post in this thread, and no one is requiring you to comment but yourself. Do I think you're a monster? No. Do I think you're naive and simplistic? I'm starting to wonder.
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Post by headache on Mar 26, 2009 13:49:49 GMT -5
Naive and simplistic? Maybe.
To me it's simple indeed, you enter an area of danger, expect it will hit you with full force and not that it will not. I have a word for not expecting anything to happen, but I guess you will call me names if I did use it. And yes, anyone who willfully walks on railroad tracks currently in use by railroads and ignore to pay attention to the environment and the situation they put themselves smack dab in the middle of, I do have to question their sanity. What is it people don't understand about a several hundred ton train coming at 50-60 Mph and without the ability to stop on a dime or to drive around an obstacle? It's like playing Russian roulette with a full magazine and expect to not get killed.
And what puzzled me even more was that neither the OP nor the linked article mentioned the poor train engineer with a single word while fawning over an irresponsible teenager. My empathy is not with family of the teen killed but with the train engineer who has to live the rest of his life with this horrible incident forever burned into his mind. A situation that he should not have had to find himself in but thanks to this teen, has to suffer for the rest of his life. Did you even take a second to think about him and his family?
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Post by dantesvirgil on Mar 26, 2009 16:50:20 GMT -5
I see. So now I'm the insensitive one because I did not mention thinking about the engineer and his family. How wonderfully presumptious of you to assume that I did not.
You're clearly just trying to provoke me, and it's rather in poor taste. If this thread is not to your liking, you can always choose not to post in it. Unless, of course, your main point is to try to stir up shit. Whether the act is irresponsible or not does not diminish the grief felt by the people who lost Andrew; nor does it mean that YOU are supposed to feel anything about it. The fact that you are creating a false dilemma (a logical fallacy, by the way) by choosing not to comprehend that a person can be both irresponsible and still grieved reveals your thinking to be rather simplistic. You also cannot tell me with any sense of logic that I am supposed to question Andrew's "sanity", a word you clearly do not know the meaning of, or that I am not supposed to feel the loss of a life cut short because that life did something irresponsible. Continue to harp on it if you choose (I did not call you names, by the way), but it's naive at best.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Mar 26, 2009 17:14:00 GMT -5
There are certain thoughts best kept to oneself. "What an idiot!" is one of them when you're around someone who just had someone they care about die.
Really, is there any need to keep prodding at this, headache? You're being an ass. I say this as a fellow poster, and not a mod, by the way. You haven't actually broken a rule here.
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