My first time seeing something like this. Was strolling through Yokohama when I saw a group of people surrounding a person who was face down with blood around them. He dressed formally with a blue dress shirt and khakis.
It didn’t hit me what I was witnessing until I saw that the person did not move at all and was barefoot.
No authorities at all at the scene so it had just happened.
Really depressing to see a person like that, they had dreams, family, hobbies and everything that gives us a personality.
All gone in a matter of seconds.
I hear all the stories but I never expect to stumble across such thing.
28 comments
Where in Yokohama? Sorry you had to experience that
Sorry you had to experience that. It’s a wave of emotions. I had something similar once, which caused great sadness, followed by great anger at the person for being so fucking selfish. Anger is better than that kind of sadness. Neither is better than either.
Something similar happened in my apartment building too. The police came and asked if I heard someone falling… I was asleep at that time so, nope. But my friend who lives downstairs heard it. 😬😬
I have dealt with this as well a couple years ago. It was really late at night, walking home from the combini, heard the impact and then saw the immediate aftermath after I turned the corner. Really awful scene.
I understand it can be traumatic and if you find this affecting you or need more support, I have only heard good things about [TELL](https://telljp.com/), they offer counselling services in English.
I feel so bad for japanese people having to suicide because they see no other way 😭
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He’d probably had some miserable shit going on for years too, and felt it was time to end the suffering. Let’s not forget that side.
It’s all to easy to indulge in the drama of the result of the final moment. But we should all remember, before we unjustly treat someone like shit, that that might be the final straw for them, and pancake them on tarmac.
I blame his parents.
Edit: no actual edit, just commenting that some dumbass downvoted this without comment, because nowadays we deal with uncomfortable truths by disapproval.
I used to hear stories about how the train would be delayed every other day during the 90s because of the economic bubble bursting and everyone throwing themselves in front of one. And then the pandemic happened and the tone went from “I’m glad we’re finally fixing it” to “well here we go again”.
Poor people. I don’t understand why the government does not give a law to work less. It’s not worth destroying your life for a job, but yet again, you have to live,.eat.. (sorry for any grammatical errors, english is not my native language). I hope they do something about the working hours until it’s not too late. (of course, not assuming this was the reason that person jumped, but i saw videos with so many people exhausted, and sleeping on the metro or streets)
I’m sorry you had to witness that OP. One time I happened to look outside my window and saw a woman on the wrong side of the balcony rail, leaning over and holding onto the rail. My instinct was to go outside and reason with her. We talked for about 15 mins, and she finally climbed back over the rail and came down and out of the building. Very scary moment I’ll never forget.
I promise I’m not being glib, research has shown that [playing tetris after experiencing a traumatic event](https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/news/tetris-used-to-prevent-post-traumatic-stress-symptoms) can prevent developing symptoms of PTSD. What you saw is naturally a shock that your body and mind can’t help but react to. You may find it useful to prevent that shock from turning into something more.
I’ve been there before, more than once. There may be a lot of feelings, but you can learn to live with it. Unfortunately this is sometimes a very sad place to live.
If they jumped, pretty sure their dreams were dead.
It’s a statement and imo, the company they worked for needs to be investigated. Whatever caused them to get to the point of suicide should be dealt with. I hear alot about black companies and something needs to be done about them. I’m just making assumptions though. Regardless, investigate who the person is and what their life was like
First dead guy? That sucks, I hope you use the resources others provided to process it.
Just imagine he was dying of cancer. Now the cancer is dead too, so he didn’t beat it, but like Norm Macdonald says, that’s a draw, at least.
I can share my stories too, if it’ll help. First two are sorta comical, third one was on a mass (3/11) scale, little less funny.
Edit – folks, when you can laugh at something, it no longer controls you. You control it. Trust me.
lost a coworker a week ago in america to suicide, he just lost everything, family, friends, he hit rock bottom we all did our best to keep him here but at the end of the day he was set… it haunts me until this day, when people are suicidal and set, there’s no stopping them :/
I have seen this twice in Japan unfortunately. Both on trains. The first one I was inside the first train car and felt the bumps as the train rolled over the man. Was stuck inside the train for two hours as authorities cleaned the scene.
The second one was a few months ago after work, I was feeling very low, I looked at the tracks and thought, “what if I just…?”I was waiting for the tram. Moments later, it was approaching I saw a very young girl dressed in a white dress barefoot calmly walk towards the tram with her arms stretched out, horn blaring. I was the only person there as it was a rural area so I panicked and screamed and she turned towards me. Luckily since this was near the platform the train could stop, she did injure her leg quite badly but from what I could tell she’s was okay. I was traumatized from that scene and anytime I hear train horns it freaks me out, I was on the phone with my friend when it happened and he could only here me screaming and the train horn, he thought it was me, so he’s even traumatized when he hears it.
Not a nice sight. And, even worse I had the terrible timing of actually seeing someone jump from a 7th floor balcony in Saitama some years ago. The sound and the whole thing repeated in my head for hours. Horrible.
Oh wow. Sorry you had to witness that.
I remember not long ago there was a viral tweet or something of a video of two young girls livestreaming their jump. I didn’t watch the video because fuck that but I had the misfortune of hearing the audio. I don’t think I’ll forget the sound of them hitting the ground. It was both unexpected but god damn traumatic.
But really, it’s fucking sad to see lives being lost like this. Whether it’s overwork or bullying or despair or anything, life can be so hard at times. I’ve been there, really contemplated, but ended up not doing it.
Few years back i was standing behind the driver in the front carriage on the chuo line, when someone jumped, damn they made a bang and the whole carriage shook with the impact. I asked but never did find out who it was, the police seemed very flippant about too – that didn’t help.
I feel ya. My neighbor, a Japanese woman in her early 20s, hung herself and I saw her through the window when I left my house since she left the curtains open so people would see. Actually heard her kick the chair but I thought she hit the wall once cause I was being loud.
When I was 21 I was at Osaka station when someone committed suicide on the platform. I saw him
Crying and yelling and throwing his stuff right before it happened. At the time I didn’t speak Japanese very well so I didn’t understand what he said…
It really bothered me tbh… I had trouble sleeping for a while after that and just felt kind of depressed and sick.
Sorry you had to experience seeing this.
Your first time seeing death is a bit weird. The lump of meat that was a living being not long ago, the consciousness gone, like I said it’s weird.
The first person I saw die was a man at a timeshare sales pitch. He was one of the salesmen. Developers near a lake by our house when I was 10 had started offering free trinkets if you came and let them hard sell you for an hour. My mother, being every bit the cheapskate I am but being able to say no to her children, a skill I never acquired, took us to every one of those. It’s how we got a horrible cheap 12v 4″ green screen TV/emergency radio/tape thingy the size of a suitcase. Or many other frankly worthless things.
Anyway – the guy had a heart attack right in front of the whiteboard. What struck me most was that the other guys doing the hard sale to the people in the chairs in that hotel lobby didn’t even stop the pitch, they sort of pulled him over to the side, put the table and table cloth over him to block him from view, and went right on with the pitch till the ambulance came to cart him off to the morgue. I don’t know if I or my brothers really understood what had happened or processed it at the time but now it’s sort of burned into my memory.
The next person I saw die was a cheerleader from my highschool. We didn’t have the drop crossing bars on all the train tracks around the rural parts of the area I lived. She’d graduated at the end of my freshman year and to avoid their missions she and her boyfriend had sealed their bond in the temple and she had been given the miracle of the infamous 6 month gestation for her first baby because you know that to get a temple recommend she had to be pure as the fresh fallen snow.
Anyway she and her mom either didn’t see/hear or tried to beat a freight train and didn’t make it. They were both DOA. Me and a bunch of people in the cars behind them rushed to get the baby, who was fortunately in a child seat in the back of the now leaking gasoline at an alarming rate car out. I think the thing that helped me process that one the most was that the focus was less on the two mangled people in the front seat who were obviously deceased and the rush to make sure we got the baby out of the car in case it caught fire.
I’ve seen a few other people die over the years, the girl who was crossing the icy street and the bus that couldn’t stop in time for the red light, the motorcyclist who lost control on an offramp and decapitated himself, the skydiver who’s shoot didn’t open in time at a football game, etc.. I’ve stumbled over several dead bodies (the grossest being a guy who jumped off the GG bridge after several days in the water) too. It never stops affecting you. Hopefully I never get numb to the shock. For you, take the time to process. Realize it’s a part of life. And take a second to be sensitive to your fellow humanbeing.
I feel it. Dealing with many hardships myself, and on top of that working for a jp company – you get so tired. When you know there’s nothing good ahead, every next day is like enduring a torture, and you go to bed each time hoping to never wake up again. Only to wake up and be like ugh. Turned into a Squidward at this point.
If there was a way to do it without a mess and bystanders gathering around – just pop out of existence without a trace, I’d be gone long ago too. I dunno how talking to a person or a therapist would be able to change anything, unless they have the super powers to affect facilities and world events or something. You’ll still be left in the same environment you were before.
Witnessed that back in the states with a boy in his early 20s, it was such a tragic situation, he accidentally landed on a girl and her date, the date was unscathed but the other two unfortunately passed. There was a lot of guilt I had to work through, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound or sight, but it does help to vent and seek someone professional if you need it. <3
People should never do this way, you can hit a innocent person below.
I’m really sorry that you had to witness that and that the deceased decided to kill themself.
A similar thing happened to me a few years ago. I heard sirens approach the building I was in. I went downstairs to throw out the trash and I saw the paramedics giving CPR to someone on the ground. It took me a few seconds to understand what had happened. When I got in the elevator, I rode up with the father of the teenager that had jumped. As a father myself, it really hit me hard.
I saw the body of a human accident that stopped the trains on the Chou line. His lifeless body was just laid out on the platform.
Emergency people eventually came and covered it with a blue tarp before hauling it away.
u/ImperialDoor
I think the reason could just as easily have been the opposite. With wages generally stagnant for the last 20-30 years, no option for the ordinary worker to find a new job if they are over 40, no chance to buy a condo, much less a house, and no meaningful pension to look forward to, or perhaps even already been fired but dresses up and pretends to go to work not to let on that they lost their job… they no longer have any dreams or hobbies. They lose their personality when the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. In other words, no reason to live.
Counseling doesn’t help when it gets that bad. “Cheer up and keep trying” doesn’t help when there is no escape route or meaningful way to enact real change.
RIP.