By Claire Corrigan
There was an extraordinary scene on Tuesday morning of this week, 9 February, at Mullingar Railway Station just before 9am, when two men’s quick actions stopped a middle-aged woman from taking her own life by jumping under the oncoming train. And it appears, also, that train problems that morning also contributed to saving the woman’s life.
Derek Newcombe, originally from D’Alton Park, who works in Dublin, and Tom Tuite were chatting at the station before making their daily commute to work in the city, when they noticed a woman acting strangely.
Mr. Newcombe told Topic, “All the trains were delayed this morning due to a broken- down train. Myself and Tom were just waiting for the 8.45 train and chatting on the platform. We’re regular commuters so I know him for years. I looked past him and I saw this lady walking right over to the edge. I said to Tom, “Is she okay?”
Mr Newcombe said that when the woman started moving out past the yellow line, he knew that something was wrong. “From using the trains all the time, you know that people don’t go in front of the yellow line. She was over the white line at this point. The only part of her that was on the platform was her heels. The rest of her feet were all over into the rail. She dropped her bag and walked towards the rail as soon as she saw that the train was coming. The way she was balanced on the platform I think the train would have taken her anyway. I think the train would have hit her, she was that far out on the edge.”
The men walked over to the woman to find out what was wrong, and saw that she was very distressed and crying. “She said, “I’m going to jump.”
“We grabbed her then and pushed her back away from the rail and wouldn’t let her up. If she had jumped onto the track, there was nothing that could have been done for her, because the train was right there at that stage,” he said.
Mr. Newcombe said that he believed the woman was determined to take her life that morning. “She definitely would have jumped. I have no doubt about it. Her feet were nearly gone over the edge and the train was almost in the station. She said that she had said goodbye to everyone and that she was going to do it.”
“I was telling a friend about it later on and he said that you wouldn’t believe the amount of times that happens. It’s never reported but there are a lot of times where people grab people back from going in front of a train,” he explained.
After Mr. Newcombe and Mr. Tuite managed to get the woman back to the seats, the station staff took over. “I hope she gets the help she needs. She was completely distressed. She said she wanted to do it and she was doing it. We had to get on the train and the staff in the train station waited with her and basically sat with her. Hopefully she’s alright.”
Mr. Newcombe said that seeing someone so distressed that they would take their own life had left him shaken. “I usually sleep the whole way on the train up but I was shaking for the entire journey and another girl that was on the train said she was still shaking too. It was scary to actually see it happen. You hear about mental health issues all the time but when you see it that close it’s different. It was all over for her. We definitely wouldn’t have had the time to get her off the track. The train was on the bend and would’ve grabbed her. Hopefully she will get sorted out. It’s a good deed done but it’s important that she gets the help she needs.”
Fellow Mullingar man Tom Tuite, said that, at first glance, he thought the woman was on her mobile phone.
“I hadn’t seen Derek in a while so we were catching up and then we noticed that she was close to the edge of the platform. We thought she was on the phone because she had her hand up to her head and it looked normal.”
However, they soon noticed that she was behaving strangely as she moved closer to the oncoming train. “We noticed that her stance was unusual and looking at her foot movements we could see her start to move when the train was just about to approach the station.”
“Then she seemed to edge closer, beyond the ‘Mind the Gap’ sign and towards the edge. Her feet started to go over the edge and then we noticed she actually wasn’t on her phone, so it wasn’t a question that she was standing there chatting absent-mindedly.”
Along with Derek he took the woman away from the platform edge just as the train came in. “She was very distressed and upset and we tried to reassure her as much as we could. We couldn’t stay with her because we both had to get on the train to go to Dublin so the lads at the station looked after her from there. Myself and Derek were chatting about it afterwards and we hope that she’s OK. I was a bit shocked because it happened very quickly.”
A staff member at Mullingar Rail Station, Donal Flynn tried to comfort the woman after the men had to board the train. “While she was on the platform seat, she was still trying to get up and force her way towards the track even when the train was on the platform. She wanted to go underneath the train. That’s all she wanted.”
Mr. Flynn said he kept his hand on her shoulder and attempted to reassure her while the train moved out. “Gardaí arrived very quickly and took over within a matter of minutes. She became more agitated when they arrived. She was very upset and I have no doubt in my mind that she wanted to jump in front of the train. She had a ticket to Kilkenny and had a small overnight bag. She told me she had said her goodbyes and wanted to die. She said that everything was all wrong and that she had to beg for money and kept repeating that she wanted to die.”
EARLIER TRAIN
Topic also learned from railway station staff that the woman had been there much earlier, before the early train was due in, but as it happened, on Tuesday morning, this first train never arrived, and passengers had to make other arrangements.
“We had train problems this morning, and the second train was also a bit late and didn’t come in until 8.55am, but as it turned out, it looks as if this woman wasn’t meant to die,” a rail worker commented, as he praised the prompt actions of the two men in noticing what was happening in time to prevent a tragedy.
(We understand the distressed woman was assisted by Mullingar Gardaí after she left the railway station with them.)
