A 15-year-old boy was killed Thursday afternoon when a train struck him at the Columbia Heights Metro station, just blocks from his school.
Metro officials said the boy, a D.C. resident, intentionally put himself onto the tracks of the downtown-bound Yellow Line train, the second suicide in a week involving a Metro train.
The agency can guard against some deaths by following safety procedures and maintaining transit equipment. But suicides pose a different challenge, one that is growing.
Last year, the transit agency reported two cases. This year, the agency has had seven, plus two unsuccessful attempts.
“Metro is enormously challenged by this suicide issue, because there’s a well-known pattern of suicides leading to suicides at a particular place,” said Metro Chairman Jim Graham. “We have got to get a handle on this problem.”
The Duke Ellington Memorial Bridge over Rock Creek Park used to be a suicide hot spot, the D.C. councilman said. Then the District erected a fence.
But adding a fence on Metro platforms would be difficult. Trains would have to line up each car’s doors with openings in the barrier, while the trains already have problems reaching a set mark in the stations.
The agency is beginning a suicide outreach initiative with a regional coalition of prevention organizations led by CrisisLink, said Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said.
One Metro station manager stopped a man on Christmas Eve last year, convincing him to climb back onto the platform from the tracks.
Doing something is important for the agency because the deaths not only tie up the train system but also affect those who see and deal with the aftermath. “It certainly impacts a large number of people, including the train operator,” Taubenkibel said. “And it also impacts the customers on the platform as well.”
In Thursday’s death, the boy was hit at 1:55 p.m. by a six-car train as it pulled into the Columbia Heights station.
The agency did not release his name because he is a minor, but a D.C. Public Schools spokeswoman said he attended the Columbia Heights Education Campus, a middle and high school several blocks from the station. The school system planned to send its crisis intervention team to the school Friday to help counsel grieving students.
The death also waylaid passengers amid the start of the rush-hour commute. It closed the station for 45 minutes, then forced trains to share a single track through the area until 4:15 p.m.
