Every so often I read a headline, and my first impulse is to laugh. And I do, and then I feel incredibly guilty and like slime because it really isn’t funny, it’s terrible and tragic, but it still seemed like horrifically sick irony. Such was my reaction to the following headline off AOL:
“Miss Deaf Texas Killed by Train”
And it’s exactly what you’d think: The poor woman was walking along the tracks and didn’t hear the whistle blowing. How she didn’t feel the vibrations, I can’t even begin to comprehend. But she didn’t, and she got killed, and I feel badly for her even though I didn’t know her, but…sheesh. What a headline.
PAD
• 
I’m a little torn. If you’re deaf, I have to believe that — to a certain extent — walking along railroad tracks like that is sort of asking Charles Darwin to explain natural selection to you the hard way.
I mean, yes, it’s a tragedy, and all that, but… this isn’t just “an accident” but “clinically brain-dead behavior”, almost so much so as to make me think “suicide”.
PAD, I thought the EXACT same thing when I read it earlier today. I even commented about the irony to my office mate. Yes, it’s tragic, but I mean, how could she not know she was tempting fate?
What makes it even worse for me to feel torn like this is that the nonprofit I work for has, among our 20+ services, an entire program dedicated to helping people who are deaf overcome that barrier to employment. I even spent a little time in a program that was located at our transportation hub, where I hired someone who was deaf to work in the dock area, with the forklifts and heavy machinery. So I know better.
But yeah, if one wanted to define the word “tragicomedy” this would be a fine example to use.
Sadly, I’m pretty sure that everyone who read that title (save, of course, for those who knew her) had the exact same reaction as you did, Peter. It’s the unfortunate little kick of schaedenfreude build into our genetic code that makes us see something like that and not stop ourselves from the same reaction.
Then again, who was it that said “Comedy is tragedy plus distance?”
I don’t think schaedenfreude is the appropriate term. My understanding is that that refers to taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. That wasn’t the case here. I took no pleasure in the poor woman’s fate. It was the specific circumstances. If the headline was “Miss Texas Killed by Train,” I would have thought, “How awful.” If it was “Miss Deaf Texas Dies of Cancer,” I would be depressed. But this situation conjured images of a frustrated engineer blasting the whistle at her screaming, “Get off the tracks! What’re you, deaf?!” and the next thing I know, I’m laughing, and then feeling lousy about it.
PAD
It actually happened just down the street from me. According to the local paper she was hit by the train’s snowplow which extended about 16 inches from the train on both sides. So she wasn’t actually walking on the tracks, but she wasn’t walking far enough away from them, and she was distracted text messaging people. And yes, the train’s horn was sounded to no effect.
Mister Goodman uttered:
“According to the local paper she was hit by the train’s snowplow which extended about 16 inches from the train on both sides.”
Sorry, but if *I* were deaf, I wouldn’t be walking closer than sixteen FEET from railroad tracks. ESPECIALLY if I’m distracted by something else (text messaging).
Makes me wonder if this Miss Deaf Texas thing is a scholarship-oriented contest, and for what, exactly, the scholarship is intended. Because I’d like to think that someone who is college-bound, deaf or not, would be smart enough to stay away from the choo-choos.
TPE
Because I’d like to think that someone who is college-bound, deaf or not, would be smart enough to stay away from the choo-choos.
Right, because never before in the history of man has any college student ever done anything foolish and dangerous.
A viewpoint from the Deaf: (Yes, I’m Deaf. I’ve had the good fortune to meet PAD on a few occassions, most recently in the Texas WizardWorld with two other Deaf comic book fans, whereupon he quipped after a few pics with us: “Great. You guys are deaf and now I’m blind.”)
Finley said Sadly, I’m pretty sure that everyone who read that title (save, of course, for those who knew her) had the exact same reaction as you did, Peter.
I beg to differ- I believe most deaf people had a different reaction- disbelief and in my case, frustration. We don’t think it’s funny but I do see the ironies in the situation.
I want to clear up one misconception y’all are gonna have- She did NOT die because she was deaf.
She died because she made a mistake, for whatever reasons they might have been. She was an 18 year old woman who had been deaf all her life. She, along with the rest of us, know to keep our eyes open because that’s how we get by in this world. So some of the above commenters are right–she should have known better. That’s why this is a very puzzling situation and I’m hoping a full investigation bears out just *what *happened. The latest allegations that she was in the middle of text messaging might be a valid reason.
The irony that may escape your view is that as Miss Deaf Texas, part of her responsibility is to be a role model for the Deaf Community. The means of her death only serves to hurt the Deaf Community for the reason I mentioned earlier- most hearing people will assume wrongly that she died just because she lacked hearing. It perpetuates the stereotypical deaf death: “didn’t hear the train coming.”
It exacerbates the overreactions that hearing parents have with deaf babies or children- the idea that the lack hearing makes their child *so* much more vulnerable to dangers compared to hearing (or in line with their thinking, “normal”) kids. I’m pretty sure all of you were told to LOOK both ways before crossing the street, rather than just listening for oncoming cars. You use all of the senses you have, not just your hearing.
That’s why I was frustrated when finding out about McAvoy’s death, and very confused. I knew better than to just accept the simple explanation of “Oh, she’s deaf. She didn’t hear the train, so she died.”
Sadly a lot of hearing people have misconceptions, and some of these people are true slime as evidenced by this blog post:
“>http://blisteringcheese.com/index.php/weblog/comments/11623/
The latest news if anyone’s interested:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/15fatal.html
I have fairly good hearing and *I* wouldn’t be that close to a set of railroad tracks. Let alone paying more attention to my text messages while doing so.
To me it wasn’t whether she was deaf or not, but that she made a bad decision to “play” near a railroad. Texting and not paying attention is obviously a gauranteed success for disaster. And yes, texting amounts to grown-up play in my opinion. That’s standard Warning 101 no matter who you are.
My favourite news headline, from just a few months ago, has to be:
“Surgeons stop bleeding in Sharon’s brain”
I’m a systems analyst for the Union Pacific, and you can bet your sweet bottom dollar that even though I don’t get any closer to a locomotive than the majority of you, it’s repeatedly drilled into our heads:
The land around tracks belongs to the railroad. If you are on it, you are trespassing. You have no business being there.
Trains do not stop on a dime. The pent-up interia from the cars behind it guarantees that.
Trains are much wider than the track.
Playing “Beat The Train To the Crossing” is a sure-fire Darwin Award winner.
I’m sorry that the lady in question died, but she had no business being there and should have known better.
JSM
I always liked “Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn’t seen in years”
There’s no harm in laughing. She won’t hear it, for several reasons. Anyway, as Mel Brooks said “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole cover and die.
I always liked “Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn’t seen in years”
Oh, that one’s just awful. That one might even be Fark-worthy, it’s so bad. (And I grew up seeing the NY Daily News on a regular basis, so I know from bad headlines.)
As for the event itself: assuming the text-messaging part of it is correct, there might even be some good to come out of what looks like really sick irony.
TWL
Careful, Peter…you don’t want that Starving Writer guy after you again….
You subscribe to AOL????????? WHY?
>She was an 18 year old woman who had been deaf all her life. She, along with the rest of us, know to keep our eyes open because that’s how we get by in this world. … That’s why I was frustrated when finding out about McAvoy’s death, and very confused.
To me, the humor in the situation was in the stereotype of beauty contest winners as being dumb as rocks. But young people make mistakes. Sadly, sometimes the mistakes are fatal.
Peter David: How she didn’t feel the vibrations, I can’t even begin to comprehend.
Luigi Novi: True. But aside from that, you would think a deaf person would know enough to look both ways when crossing any type of intersection, instead of working a text messager.
e. bart: I want to clear up one misconception y’all are gonna have- She did NOT die because she was deaf. She died because she made a mistake, for whatever reasons they might have been. She was an 18 year old woman who had been deaf all her life. She, along with the rest of us, know to keep our eyes open because that’s how we get by in this world. So some of the above commenters are right–she should have known better.
Luigi Novi: Why do you assume that the causes to which you attribute her death are mutually exclusive from her deafness, as if it’s somehow an Either-Or question? Situations can have many contingent causes. Her carelesses in making the mistake of using a text message while crossing an intersection is one. The fact that she was deaf is another. Thus, there is no contradiction.
Jeff Morris: The land around tracks belongs to the railroad. If you are on it, you are trespassing. You have no business being there.
Luigi Novi: You do if you’re crossing them. Many train tracks cross public roads. Can we presume that the one McAvoy was crossing was? Or can someone provide a link establishing that she was trespassing on a private one? (I’d be very surprised if that turned out to be the case.)
Luigi, she wasn’t crossing the tracks at all, she was walking alongside them. See the news story linked previously by e. bart. It sounds like she had the sense not to be directly on the tracks, but didn’t realize that the train (or at least the plow) was somewhat wider than that. Not to say that wasn’t a serious mistake, of course, but let’s not overstate it.
I haven’t posted a response to this blog for a while. Usually, by the time I spot a PAD post I feel like responding to, there’s already a kazillion responses, so it just feels kind of silly to add to the chatter.
But, after reading some of the responses here, I had a tough time with the idea of NOT responding.
Do some of you guys need a justification to be bášŧárdš? I mean, what’s all this “If *I* were deaf” and all these comments that are meant to – whether the victim in this story was deaf or not – pass judgment on what she was doing?
Exactly what is the motivation behind a comment like this: “To me it wasn’t whether she was deaf or not, but that she made a bad decision to “play” near a railroad. Texting and not paying attention is obviously a gauranteed success for disaster.”
Yes, she made a bad decision…and that means what? She deserved it? Her acts were morally reprehensible? To you “it wasn’t whether she was deaf or not?” Well what’s “it” in that sentence? What is “it” determining?
You could die in your bed. You could die crossing the street (even if you look both ways! *gasp!*). You could die because you didn’t lock your doors while you were driving. You could die because you DID use your safety belt. How is walking alongside a railroad track any different from walking alongside a road? How did this woman deserve it anymore than I would if I looked away for a second when the newspaper delivery van that, without fail, always drives onto the sidewalk in front of my employer’s building every morning, and got smushed into jelly? Would people here be writing, “Well if *I* were leaving a building and walking on the sidewalk, *I* would staple my eyelids open and install cybernetic radar in my ášš?”
I don’t know. It seems to me that PAD had an understandable reaction to an unusual headline, that he felt guilty for it, that he wasn’t the only one, and now some of the folks who felt the same guilt are stupidly judging a dead woman because of how she died to assuage that guilt. She didn’t stick her head in a gator’s mouth. She walked next to some train tracks.
Gosh some people sure are judgemental! Sometimes people look at things far too deeply.
PAD you shouldn’t feel guilty about laughing at the headline – it is something we take for granted I think in England – ironic humour (you have a very british sense of humour PAD).
The situation appears funny because of the circumstances involved, that’s why we laugh about it – but laughing at it doesn’t actually take away from the fact that it is ultimately depressing and tragic.
If you asked this woman if she would have laughed at the headline then I’m sure she would have said yes as well. I’m partially deaf and I laffed!
So ultimately just because we laugh at something doesn’t mean we are insensitive or disrespectful, it is just “life” and our own natural defence system against the tragedies that we all deal with in our lives.
“you would think a deaf person would know enough to look both ways when crossing any type of intersection, instead of working a text messager.”
Cell phone/text message addiction is a powerful force. As people who cross streets while oblivious to what’s going on around them thanks to their oh-so-important phone conversation indicates. We need 12-step programs to wean people off these things. Or at least get it under control.
PAD: I don’t think schaedenfreude is the appropriate term.
I don’t intend to be a dìçk, but it’s schadenfreude, not schaedenfreude.
Tim.
So that would be two reasons why it’s not the appropriate term, yes? 😉
Thanks for the clarification, Jim.
Michileen, notwithstanding Grace’s choice of the word “play”, I don’t think anyone here is acting like a “bášŧárd,” or implying that McAvoy “deserved” dying or that what she did was “morally” anything. But as far as “passing judgment” on what she did, all people pass “judgment” to the extent that they form opinions on such news stories. Me, my conclusions were colored by the fact that I didn’t know that she was walking alongside the tracks instead of crossing them. I don’t think that makes me a “bášŧárd”, just someone who didn’t get the correct info.
Michileen, if you are aware that this van always drives up onto the sidewalk at a predictable point, and you fail to account for this as you walk through that point, then yes, in my opinion, it’s about time for Natural Selection to turn and look in your direction. It’s an avoidable hazard – just as walking down a railroad right-of-way is an avoidable hazard. This girl took such a hazard, added two factors that made it even more hazardous – and evolution took its course.
The headline is what makes it funny.
Of course, you know the old saying, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then hey – free eyeball!”
**Yes, she made a bad decision…and that means what? She deserved it? Her acts were morally reprehensible? To you “it wasn’t whether she was deaf or not?” Well what’s “it” in that sentence? What is “it” determining?
No…but sometimes? Bad decisions have really bad consequences. Driving the wrong way down a one way street is a bad decision. I don’t think a person DESERVES to die for it…but it’s a cold, hard fact of life.
If you take a risk and pay a big price, that is to bad, and I feel sorry for you…but that doesn’t mean you don’t bear some responsibility for the end result and are beyond having your role in the tragedy pointed out.
Whenever I see a story like this, I almost always look for the sentence, “Police say that alcohol was involved.” Because it’s usually there, especially in a potential Darwin award case. Once I hear or read that sentence, I feel safe in laughing at the headline.
Here in Harrisburg, a guy was recently arrested after he dropped his girlfriend out a 21st story window in his apartment. According to the official reports, they were fooling around after celebrating his recent appointment to the State Gambling Board and decided that dangling her out the window would be fun.
And yes, police say that alcohol was involved.
CNN is famous for their “unfortunate” choice of headlines.
My recent favorite ” Bush decries cartoon violence” of course talking about the muslim reaction to the dutch cartoon of allah. But the image in my head is of him complaining about “the waskily wabbit”
“Exactly what is the motivation behind a comment like this: “To me it wasn’t whether she was deaf or not, but that she made a bad decision to “play” near a railroad. Texting and not paying attention is obviously a gauranteed success for disaster.”
To be fair, I think the motivation was that it was in response to a posting from e. bart who made clear he believed her deafness was being wrongfully blamed for her tragedy. He put in bold “She did NOT die because she was deaf.” So I think Gracecat was trying to be mollifying in her response…and instead pìššëd YOU off.
“I don’t intend to be a dìçk, but it’s schadenfreude, not schaedenfreude.”
Jeez, dude, I was just using TimK’s spelling. Go tell HIM it’s wrong.
PAD
PAD: Jeez, dude, I was just using TimK’s spelling. Go tell HIM it’s wrong.
Actually, you used Finley’s spelling.
And now I’m a dìçk 😉 .
Tim.
“Yes, she made a bad decision…and that means what? She deserved it? Her acts were morally reprehensible? To you “it wasn’t whether she was deaf or not?” Well what’s “it” in that sentence? What is “it” determining? “
She was walking ALONG, no crossing the tracks
She was playing with her text messenger instead of paying attention to her surroundings
It’s her own stupid fault she died. Natural selection at work. Thankfully, she wasn’t operating a vehicle while texting and didn’t cost anyone else their lives. Good riddance.
“Cell phone/text message addiction is a powerful force. As people who cross streets while oblivious to what’s going on around them thanks to their oh-so-important phone conversation indicates. We need 12-step programs to wean people off these things. Or at least get it under control.”
If it weren’t for the effects on the internet and cable/satellite TV, I’d be happy if all Cell/Text satellites were all destroyed by meteors and never re-established, and the evil that is the 24/7-connected world of cell phones was gone…
-Totally agree with someone else who posted earlier. Driving in the city is like running an obstacle course of pedestrians with cell phones.
-Does anyone know how deaf she was? I’m thinking profoundly deaf since she didn’t hear the horn. I haven’t found a good bio of her yet.
-I’m guessing that if you were that close to a train you could feel it (vibrations, wind, whatnot). Does anyone know? I’ve never stood that close to a train. The metro line kicks up a lot of wind when it’s pushing throught the tunnel.
I’m sure she could have felt the vibrations of an oncoming train walking along the tracks. My guess is that she was engrossed in text messaging that she didn’t realize how close to the tracks she was.
Unfortunate deaths are a weird thing. We tend to have an almost uncontrolled laugh reaction…deaths like this, where the circumstances are just so odd that it seems like the punchline to a joke. But after the laugh comes the remorse, loss, and a little guilt, as PAD expressed. That’s fine, understandable, and normal.
The jokes and attitude that some express after that is not. I personally don’t tolerate it, and don’t find anything funny or entertaining in people having a joke over the unfortunate death of another. There’s a fairly popular afternoon talk jock here in Chicago that I won’t listen to at all anymore. He did a bit one afternoon about a couple that was having a beachfront wedding, and the couple got married in about 2-3 feet of surf. And of course, during the vows, as the story went, a 16′ Tiger shark came up and grabbed the bride. Grabbed as in took and dragged her into the surf, never to be seen again. When told as an unfortunate death story, it might evoke the same reactions as this current story does. But when a radio show plays it for jokes as entertainment, I go from feeling sadness to anger.
I’ve seen lots of judgmental comments about this accident. They pretty much all make me weep for the state our society has fallen into.
In response to college bound students and the expectations that they be smarter; at MSU it was (and probably still is) a practice to hop the train that cuts through campus to get to one side or the other.
I personally know one student who tried to do this while drunk and ended up under the wheels and dragged to his death.
And alcohol was involved 😉
Maybe it’s because I work in a hospital, but most people in the emergency services industry have built up quite the ironic and dark sense of humour in regards to things like this, and some of the things they say would undoubtably offend people. however, that doesn’t mean they don’t care, it’s just how we deal with an exceptionally gruesome job. I often find myself having to turn off my gallows humour while in the public because I know it won’t be recieved the same as with my fellow emergency service workers.
It’s natural to use gallows humour as a release though, then again, some people going on about how she “deserved” it are being jáçkáššëš about it, and I’m sure they’ve never done anything stupid in their lives that might have caused them injury.
When I was a sports reporter in college, I once covered an informal Q&A with then-local basketball coach Rick Majerus. He announced that an incoming freshman had lost a leg playing chicken with a train — I guess kids in this basketball player’s peer group would lie on the tracks in front of slow-moving trains until the last second and then pull themselves away.
Majerus was announcing they were hoping to still give the kid a scholarship so he could attend school and get on with his life.
A reporter raised his hand.
“Will that be an athletic scholarship, coach?”
Majerus paused for a second before replying.
“Do you think the kid should get an academic one?”
Ok I stayed out of this one but I do have an experience to share about trains and stupidity. When I was a Junior at Emory we had a freshman who worked in the box office at the theater for his work study. Nice kid. Made it into the school on a full merit scholarship. He was from a small town in Appalacha Mountains. His family was dirt poor but he made it into a good school and wanted to become a doctor. They use to rush for fraternities in the fall. He had been through the rush and was going to pledge a frat who was going to get brownie points with the admin for taking him but this kid was brilliant and had a great easy going personality. He would have been a great doctor. But after a evening of drinking (underage) he and a bunch of his frat buddies went train hopping. Now the accounts of what happened vary. What we do know is that he slipped into an open box car that had scrap metal in it. The train went around a curve and the mental shifted crushing him again a wall. They found his body in the car in Chicago. I remember that the head of the theater deparment took up a collection for the funeral and we sent that money his last paycheck to his mother. Stupid waste of a good human life that would have probably done great things for his community if he had lived.
Jeeze, Bladestar, I think “Good riddance” is taking it too far. It’s not like the world is better place without her. I have no problem with people stating that walking near a railroad track while text messaging without the benefit of hearing is a dumb thing to do but I don’t think we should celebrate it when people suffer the worst possible consequences of their actions.
I’m just waiting for her family to try suing the railroad next.
No one takes any responsibilty for themselves anymore. Anyone who walks around ignoring where they are going just to text message is a waste of oxygen consumption in my book. ESPECIALLY if they are ignoring their surroundings walking along railroad tracks. I just can’t have any sympathy for her. Just like I can’t have sympathy for drunk drivers that get themselves killed. As I stated, the only good thing is only she died, and she didn’t hurt anyone else in the process.
Well, MAYBE people will see what happened to her and pull their heads out of their áššëš and start paying more attention to the world around them instead of their cell phones…
“I’m just waiting for her family to try suing the railroad next.”
Oh, I can show you something better than that. Here’s a story about a man essentially suing himself:
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/8023329/detail.html
Oh…my….god… what a pair of idiots… hopefully he loses his job, the case, and his insurance company denies any attempted claim..
Gotta come to PAD’s defense here- after all, if anyone here is gonna be a dìçk they need to be a dìçk to the right schmuck with the wrong spelling- namely, me.
And I suppose that in hindsight Schadenfreude isn’t the correct term- although I’m also certain there are those to whom that would apply. I suppose that it’s more a healthy appreciation of situational irony than anything else.
Now, of course, I have to be a dìçk and say that although it’s correct that this young woman didn’t die because she was deaf, she DID die after displaying a remarkable moment of stupidity. I’m sorry, but pretty much since I was a child one of the big lessons my parents taught me was simple- don’t play near the road or railroad tracks. It was an astonishingly bad idea for this woman to do so, especially when you add the fact that she was apparently unable to either hear the train or feel the vibrations on the ground (and as someone who has lived near railroad tracks I can attest to the feeling of a train coming down the tracks).
It’s sad, and incredibly unfortunate for this young woman and those who knew her. It’s also incredibly ironic- which any Peter David fan should be able to recognize.
In one report I read a witness said that the deaf woman “didn’t even react” to the train. My question is “If you’re a witness, where were you? Did you not think to wave your arms and help out?” I mean, chances are they did but still it’s an odd choice of words in the story.
Michael
I can say, as someone else in the medical field, even in a support capacity, you either have or develop that morbid sense of humor or you lose your mind.
And even though I feel sorry for the girl’s family and friends, there are situations in life like this when the “victim” really has nobody to blame but themselves.
-Rex Hondo-
On the theme of tragicomic headlines:
A few years ago a local newspaper ran the headline: MAN SLIPS ON BANANA PEEL.
I thought this was hilarious – I mean, it’s THE classic slapstick situation that NEVER actually happens, right? Then I read the story. Seems the man was a pensioner, he fell, split his head open on the pavement and died. How horrible. I though could there ever be a more perfect example of the fragile nature of life & death and the relationship of comedy to tragedy…
Luigi,
PAD nailed it in his previous response- I was trying to forestall the automatic assumption that hearing people would get from simply reading the headline- that she died because she was deaf. I’m not against people commenting that she made a bad choice- I believe it too myself from the latest set of facts coming to light.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/15train.html
CNN has also reported on it. A deaf friend of mine has said that this is bringing a problem within the Deaf Community to light- our version of your cellphone addiction. 8-\
Michael J Norton: “My question is ‘If you’re a witness, where were you? Did you not think to wave your arms and help out?'”
It seems rather baseless to presume that they didn’t try something along those lines. But unless the witness happened to be located down the tracks from the victim (in the line of sight, in other words) or close enough to physically reach her before the train did, it would be unlikely they’d have any more success than the train crew did.
Today’s ‘best selling’ UK newspaper had this headline today.
“We saw human guinea pig explode.”
It also made me laugh, even though the story is a horrible one.
(Concerning this story)
Unfortunately, I really can’t feel too much sympathy for the young woman. It’s a tragedy, yes, but one that could VERY easily have been avoided by just the tiniest bit of common sense. (Unfortunately, common sense is least common of all the senses.)
The person who I do feel sympathy for in this story is the engineer of the train. He now has to spend the rest of his life with the fact that he is responsible for the death of another person. He now has to spend every day knowing that, despite every he did and could have done, someone died under his engine.
At least you felt bad about it. I came across this headline on Fark a while back about a cell phone accident. This link is to some of the comments. People can be cruel…(apologies if my HTML is a bit off – first time trying to include a link…)
Bel