Metra CEO has first-hand knowledge of train fatality effects

Some 35 years ago, when Metra CEO Don Orseno was the engineer on a train that accidentally killed a man walking a dog, his employer offered no counseling to workers involved in fatal train incidents.

But today, such employees not only are assisted with counseling; but they are also being coached on how to detect possible suicide plotters as the nation enters what traditionally has been the peak season for suicides.

Orseno on Wednesday shared his personal experience with a fatal train incident when asked about three fatalities Metra experienced over three days just this month, including one since declared a suicide.

Back on his birthday, which happened to be Thanksgiving Day, 1980, Orseno said, he was the engineer of a Chicago Northwestern train that fatally hit a man who was looking down as he crossed the tracks while walking his dog.

“He looked down, and he never looked up,” Orseno said during a break in Wednesday’s Metra board meeting.

Such fatalities are traumatizing to the victim’s family but also to a host of train workers involved — from engineers to emergency responders at the scene of the tracks, Orseno said.

“It affects you a lot. You always wonder: Why didn’t that person hear [the train]? Why did that person stop? Why did they make this decision because when you are up on a locomotive or train, all you can do is put the train into emergency [braking] and when the train stops, it stops.”

Back in those days, engineers were offered no counseling but today, counseling is mandatory for Metra engineers in the wake of any fatality and also can be provided to crew members.

“Things have changed a lot, for the good,” Orseno said.

In addition, in the last nine months, Metra has started offering a four-hour course to help nearly 1,000 front-line workers detect signs of emotional distress that could hint at suicidal tendencies — among passengers or fellow workers, said Metra Chief Safety Officer Hilary Konczal.

“It’s been extremely successful,” Konczal said. Already, it has borne fruit.

Among those getting the training was Metra Road foreman Robert Tellin, who later stopped a potential suicide.

Tellin saw a man standing on the tracks at the Metra Elgin station in January and warned him that “A train is coming. You’re going to be hit,” Konczal said. When the man responded “that’s what I want to do,” Tellin grabbed him as the train approached and saved his life, Konczal said.

Nationally, suicides have reached a near 30-year high. Across the country, they tend to peak in the spring and at Metra, they have been spiking in the spring and fall, Konczal said.

So far this year, Metra has experienced eight fatalities, including four possible or coroner-declared suicides, which is about average, Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said. Three fatalities occurred between April 12 and April 15, including one, at the Hanover Park station, that has been ruled a suicide.