I was standing on the northbound platform of Camden Town underground station on my way to a friend's birthday party in Golders Green when a young man a few yards from me suddenly clutched his head in his hands and shouted out "No! No! Why did you do that?" What was he on about? I turned to see that the train had come to a sudden halt. An elderly man had thrown himself under it.

No sound came from beneath the train as we looked for signs of life. "He really went for it," said the young man who had witnessed the leap. "He meant to do it." The driver emerged from behind the controls and stood silently on the platform. He looked completely stunned. He had brought the train to a halt as swiftly as possible and yet had been unable to stop before the jumper hit the tracks. Within minutes the emergency services – police, fire brigade, ambulance – were at the station, all of them only too familiar with what a "one under" means.

Out on the street, as the station was cleared and closed, would-be passengers were complaining about the delays, most of them unaware of what had just happened below. "Typical bloody London Transport," was one remark.

This happened one Sunday night last month and I was reminded of the driver's dazed and lost expression as the news came through today that "Tube drivers' salaries to rise to more than £50,000". The very first reaction to this headline on the Guardian website was from a generous-spirited reader: "What is so special about these guys? Holding the capital to ransom as usual."

The recent deaths of five miners in two separate incidents have provoked, quite rightly, a communal sadness. Yet it seems that people often forget the trauma that any driver must experience when a stranger hurls themselves to their death in front of their train. This is something that one tube driver must experience, on average, every week. A Transport for London spokesperson said that there were 41 such incidents last year "and each one is traumatic for everyone involved".

Everyone who travels by London underground is aware of the collective sigh that greets the genteel announcement that there will be delays because of "a person under a train". A few of the jumpers miraculously survive, if they happen to fall into the pit below the rails. But for many of them it is what emergency service workers describe as a "bucket and spade job". The drivers get time off and are offered counselling by Transport for London's occupational health department. Colleagues can offer sympathy but for some the trauma inevitably has a permanent effect.

Most people do not begrudge the excellent salaries of the buffed and shiny airline pilots who deliver us safely to our holiday destinations. We may smile at them and say thank you as we leave the plane. How many spare a thought for the tube drivers who work underground rather than in the open skies, driving 3.5 million people across the capital each day, who don't have a fancy cap saying "to fly, to serve" on it and who know that round any corner someone who has had enough of life may be waiting to leap into the hereafter.

Little boys – and possibly a few little girls – used to grow up wanting to be train drivers. The magic slipped from the job years ago, a casualty of declining respect for public services as much as anything else. But the drivers who take the millions of Londoners and visitors and tourists to their destinations every day are unsung heroes and heroines. They should be recognised as such in their pay packets, which the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union is still in the process of finalising, not least for having to deal with the lurking possibility of a "one under". That's what's so special about those guys.