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Wednesday 13 August 2014
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Fast track to trauma Chris Brennan chris@baysidenews.com.au
Sunset show
PARKDALE Secondary College year 10 student Bianca Allardyce exhibited her Sunset painting at this year’s Kingston Charitable Fund HeART Art Show at Mordialloc’s Woodlands Golf Club. The Kingston Charitable Fund has given more than $300,000 to charities since its 2007 inception. See page 6. Picture: Gary Sissons
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ANOTHER day, another near rail fatality, another traumatised train driver. The near miss this time was on the Frankston line at Chelsea shortly after midday last Saturday when a train driver was forced to slam on the emergency brakes after spotting a person on the tracks. Fortunately, the individual was not hit but passengers were trapped on board the train in between stations for more than 30 minutes while a replacement driver was found. Frankston line commuters experienced delays into the early afternoon as Metro battled to get services back on schedule. But the inconvenience to passengers was relatively minor compared to the long-term mental health effects faced by the driver. As has been the case in hundreds of similar incidents across Melbourne’s train network each year, the driver involved in Saturday’s near miss required treatment for shock and will now undergo ongoing trauma counselling that could see him off work for an extended period of time. “As you can imagine, near misses such as this can be very traumatic events for our drivers,” Metro Trains spokeswoman Pauline O’Connor said. “Unlike a car, our drivers are not able to swerve the train out of the way, or bring it to a stop quickly, and these incidents can have a traumatic effect on our driver’s wellbeing. “It is a confronting experience for our drivers every time they need to use the emergency brake, as it is generally clear to them when a collision is going to occur.” She said Metro Trains had a comprehensive trauma support process in place to help drivers deal with the effects of fatalities and
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near misses. And the need for trauma support services for drivers is significant, with dozens of fatalities and hundreds of near misses involving trains every year. There were 11 deaths involving trains last year in the bayside area alone, and a further five already this year. The most recent of these were a man who was hit near Cheltenham on 10 July and an elderly man riding a bicycle who was struck and killed at an Edithvale pedestrian crossing a month earlier. Senior Sergeant Chris James of Chelsea police said incidents involving trains, the railway line or stations were of significant concern to police. “With a fair length of train line running through our service area and a large number of crossings, rail incidents are a big safety and law and order issue for police,” Senior Sergeant James said. “The consequences of anything involving a train is obviously very serious, both in terms of the potential for death and injury and the extensive delays and traffic issues they can cause. “And it is not only the impact on the direct victims of such incidents but also for emergency workers such as ambulance and police, and train drivers and rail staff, who are too often forced to deal with the highly traumatising scenes.” While many cases of people trespassing onto train lines involved mental health issues or “wilfully dangerous acts”, many fatalities, injuries and close calls were due to people trying save time or not paying enough attention. Senior Sergeant James said police treated any risk-taking behaviour around rail lines “very seriously” and would apply “the full force of the law” to any safety breaches. Continued page 4
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