'A plunge into horror'
That is how the caption read in the Atlanta Journal Constitution's September 23 issue. Most Australians have heard of the tragic loss of 47 lives aboard the infamous US rail system's death train, the Sunset Limited.
While speeding across a bridge just north of Mobile, Alabama, the train left the track and plunged into the murky depths of Bayou Canot, a swamp locally known for its snake and alligator infestation.
The photographs of the mangled bridge, with a still upright rail car dangling precariously over its edge, along with a barge floating nearby upon which a line of recently recovered bodies in white bags lay side by side, were chilling sights indeed.
US media outlets went into their usual sensationalised routines in their efforts to bring the tragedy to the general public's attention. As you might imagine, at the time of writing there are several "experts" debating who or what was at fault. However, so far no-one has highlighted the most obvious, and disturbing, pre-accident aspect of this catastrophe.
Many of the 47 lives, especially the 44 who were in the passenger car, were needlessly lost. Some of those who perished might well have been saved if they could have escaped the car while it was submerged, the snakes and alligators be damned. Their inability to escape the car reduced it to little more than a coffin. The doors at each end were not operational because they required electricity to open and, of course, there was no power.
Less that five of my 50 years on this earth have been spent in a school of any kind. Yet, one needn't be a rocket scientist or highly skilled mechanical engineer to design a rail car with a door at each end that can be manually opened. As early as age 10 I learned that if a child applies five pounds of pressure on a well-tooled and oiled worm gear, s/he can move thousands of pounds with relative ease. Such a mechanism, even in its most basic form, would have provided at least two escape hatches for these ill-fated passengers.
There was a time when conveyances for mass transportation were designed with passenger safety in mind: windows that could be pushed or kicked out and doors that, in case of an accident, could easily be opened by even a small child. Alas, the new mind-set seems to be one of save or make money. Little else matters.
When I was free, under the driver's seat or armrest of every vehicle I owned I kept a 16-ounce ballpein hammer and fire extinguisher for emergencies. Upon impact, in an accident, doors often jam shut, reducing the vehicle to an oxygen-less death chamber. A 16-ounce ballpein hammer will break out any one or all of the vehicle's windows, even under water.
We can all only wonder how many of the lives in that rail car might have been saved if just one ballpein hammer had been handy.
Meanwhile, let us hope that those seemingly brilliant people whom global corporations pay astronomical amounts of money to design and build rail cars and the like, get back to the basics: passenger safety and comfort.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]