(The following story by Sarah Gordon appeared on the North County Times website on May 3. Michael D. Guyer is a member of BLET Division 20 in Los Angeles.)
TEMECULA, Calif. — From high in his train, driving between San Diego and Los Angeles, Amtrak Engineer Mike Guyer has a sweeping view of coastal North County.
Too often, that view includes violent death.
Since moving here in 1995 and driving both Coaster and Amtrak trains, the 48-year-old engineer was at the controls when his train struck and killed nine people, all in San Diego County, most of them between Del Mar and Oceanside.
By comparison, in the first 13 years of his career driving Amtrak and freight routes in the Midwest, Guyer hit one person.
Guyer said he tells engineers who are thinking of taking a job on the coastal line what nobody told him: “You’re moving to a place where you’re going to hit a lot of people. Know that the thing is going to take a little piece of you.”
Last month, two people died on the coastal rail corridor; both were ruled suicides by the medical examiner’s office.
On April 18, a 46-year-old man stood in front of a Coaster train in Sorrento Valley. On April 21, a 24-year-old Oceanside man stepped in front of a southbound Amtrak in Carlsbad.
Engineers such as Guyer witness these deaths firsthand; they are emotionally jarring experiences that North County engineers apparently face more often than their counterparts around the country.
Deadly tracks
Guyer’s supervisor, Ron Hyatt, said that fatal incidents are common for Amtrak engineers who drive trains between San Diego and Los Angeles. He said one engineer who spent his 30-year career on the populated corridor saw 25 people killed by his train.
A study conducted by the engineer’s union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, concluded that in a 25-year-career, an engineer on average has three fatal incidents, spokesman John Tolman said. He said the number could be much higher for operators of commuter trains in populated areas such as San Diego County.
It is difficult to assess how frequently people are struck on North County tracks compared to other areas because the Federal Railroad Administration only tracks deaths recorded as accidents, not those of apparent suicides.
But Hyatt said the route is known among engineers as one of the nation’s deadliest.
The majority of rail fatalities in San Diego County over the last five years have been suicides, county medical examiner’s office records show. For a five-year period ending in 2006, the last year statistics were available, there were 48 deaths involving trains —- 30 were deemed suicides and 16 accidents. In two of the cases, the coroner failed to determine whether the death was a suicide or an accident.
This year, eight people have died on the coastal tracks from San Diego to Orange County, with five of the deaths occurring in North County, said the Sheriff’s Department Rail Enforcement Unit, which patrols the corridor. Seven of those deaths were ruled suicides by the county medical examiner’s office, and one is still under investigation.
A plan for coping
Guyer tells engineers new to the area to “have a plan” for how they are going to cope with a fatality.
At first, Guyer had no plan himself. Within a year of taking the job here, a man stepped out of thick bushes that Guyer said once flanked the tracks at Cassidy Street in Oceanside. The man lay down on the tracks as Guyer’s southbound train went over him at about 70 mph.
“There was no time to do anything; it was just so shocking,” Guyer said.
Now when Guyer anticipates that he may be about to hit someone, he pushes the emergency brake, covers his eyes and puts his hands on his ears. The noise is the worst, he said. It’s a loud crunch followed by the sound of the body displacing gravel and thumping against the bottom of the train.
Guyer tried to deal with his first three deaths stoically. Veteran engineers he knew had gone through the same thing, and they were usually taciturn, he said. If the incidents were eating at them, they didn’t show it.
But keeping quiet and pretending the deaths didn’t bother him didn’t work for Guyer, who said he experienced a range of sharp responses. Hitting people was horrible, both in the violent moment and afterward. Each time, he would hold out hope that somehow the stranger had survived and ache when he heard the bad news.
“There were times when I had some bad dreams and it kept me up all night; there were times when I went to the gym and was on the bike about three hours, just physically depleting myself until I could get some relief,” he said.
Guyer said he finally realized he needed help.
“Counseling is a good thing,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you can’t handle it; it doesn’t mean you’re crazy. That’s the old way of thinking.”
After a fatality
Several studies show a majority of train engineers suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder for a few months after such an incident.
In response, rail operators across the nation offer counseling and time off, their representatives said.
Amtrak engineers are given a leave of absence and contacted by a counselor within 24 hours of an accident, spokeswoman Vernae Graham said. The rail line operates 12 trains on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego; stops include Oceanside and Solana Beach.
Engineers who drive the Coaster commuter trains who have been involved in a fatal incident are always replaced by another operator before service resumes, said Tom Kelleher, a spokesman for the North County Transit District. The policy is also true for Sprinter engineers, he said.
Chad Cold, an engineer supervisor with the Coaster and formerly with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight line from San Diego to Barstow, said engineers react differently.
“Some guys lock it up inside; some guys want to talk about the whole thing,” he said. “Some guys will get emotional and start thinking about the family of the person who died.”
A shocking crash
Counseling, talking to a priest and sharing experiences with other engineers helped Guyer. But a fatality in September 2006 caused him to rethink his life.
His train smashed into a pickup that had rolled under the crossing arms at Leucadia Boulevard. Its driver, 61-year-old Carlsbad resident Rufino Espinoza, had probably suffered a diabetic swoon, the medical examiner’s office concluded.
“It was a Friday afternoon, and I had 30 more miles to go and then I was going away for the weekend,” Guyer recalled. “The truck was annihilated; some flying debris shattered my windshield, and I was in such a state of shock, I didn’t even notice.”
Espinoza died in the hospital several days later.
Guyer said the crash was so upsetting that he wanted to get away for awhile. He had family and a potential love interest in the Midwest, and decided that perhaps it was time to get out of Southern California.
“I certainly believed I needed a break,” he said. “Once you’ve had a whole bunch of them, or a really bad one, even with a priest and critical incident counseling, you’re going to need a break.”
He went home to Kansas City, but he stayed less than a year. He said he missed California. In the spring of 2007, he returned to his route.
Connection with the dead
Despite his struggles, Guyer said he feels positive about his work here. On a recent trip, as the train gobbled up a seemingly endless line of tracks ahead, Guyer extolled his spectacular view. Through Del Mar, the train crossed a narrow rail bridge over the San Dieguito River while shorebirds crossed the sky to the Pacific. Around every bend, equally postcard-perfect scenes unfolded.
“Isn’t it pretty? Where else can you see this?” he said as the train traveled just east of Swami’s Beach in Encinitas.
About two months ago, in the same area, the engineer of a southbound Coaster train warned him by radio a woman who might be suicidal was standing around the tracks about a mile ahead. Guyer slowed the train and saw a neatly dressed woman in her late 30s; he was able to stop in front of her, he said.
He opened his window and called to her, “Why don’t you let us get you some help? It looks like you’re having a tough day.”
She began to cry, he said.
“I thought this was going to be quick and easy,” she wept.
Guyer said he called a rail security guard, who detained the woman until a sheriff’s deputy took her into custody for a mental evaluation.
The encounter with the woman, Guyer said, was “another piece” in learning to deal with the darkest side of his work.
“It gave me an understanding that there’s usually mental illness (involved),” he said. “It helped me feel compassion.”