Taking action

Deneault was on leave for 17 months, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

He could barely function at first. He had trouble sleeping and when he did, the nightmares were never-ending. Eventually, with the help of a therapist, he says he made it out of the darkness.

Deneault’s mental health recovery was harrowing, and as the number of suicide attempts climbs the TTC is facing a growing absentee rate because more employees are coping with the effects of similar experiences.

In 2017, the only year for which the TTC was able to provide up-to-date figures, 45 suicide-related incidents accounted for more than 4,000 days off, with workers involved being away from work for an average of 123 days.

The wider financial cost is also staggering. According to transit research compiled by the TTC, a single suicide incident can add up to millions of dollars in lost time for society as a whole.

The TTC is looking at 'engineered solutions' as well as other strategies to address the issue of suicide. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

The TTC is looking at 'engineered solutions' as well as other strategies to address the issue of suicide. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Those cold costs, along with the serious human and emotional tolls, are driving a renewed push for a permanent solution.

One idea has been mused about before. Now, for the first time since a feasibility study was conducted for the TTC 15 years ago and then shelved, it’s a step closer to reality.

On a summer afternoon at one of the TTC’s busiest stations, John O’Grady leads a team from an architectural and engineering firm as they take photos and measurements. It's part of a new study to assess what it would take to build platform-edge doors, physical barriers that would only open when trains are in the station. The doors are used widely in newer Asian and European metro systems.

On this day, the team is evaluating whether the platforms in Toronto’s older stations are wide enough to accomodate the doors and strong enough to support them.

It would be complicated and costly to retrofit the aging subway system built in 1954 — at least $1 billion.

The project would require the political will to fund it, but it's the most tangible way of making subway platforms safer and O'Grady is convinced it would help.

"It’s a moral imperative," he says in a steely voice. "Knowing that we have a solution to all this loss of life, how can we not go ahead and do it? If you know there's something you can do that's going to save one life, then you are duty-bound to do that thing."

O'Grady is convinced that platform-edge doors would save lives. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

O'Grady is convinced that platform-edge doors would save lives. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

As the site survey continues, he spots a shirtless man sitting on the platform floor muttering to himself. O'Grady discreetly makes his way towards him and stands near the man until the train comes into the station.

He admits he was worried. He always is.

Platform-edge doors would not only save lives, they would mean a reprieve from the constant vigilance required from TTC staff. But even if the funding comes through, it’s still years away.

So subway officials are looking at a range of solutions.

The TTC has refreshed its crisis line posters to remind people contemplating suicide that help is only a call away (416-408-4357 or 416-408-HELP).

And there is a new strategy being launched this week: Asking commuters to intervene.

'I think the next big untapped resource is asking our customers to look at their fellow citizens and just talk to them.'

"I think the next big untapped resource is asking our customers to look at their fellow citizens and just talk to them," O’Grady says.

"You don’t have to be trained for that. Just say hello, you know, how’s the weather today, how about those Leafs, you feeling OK? Something just to break that impulse, that chain reaction. So I think that’s the next thing we can try to do until we get an engineered solution."

O’Grady says research from Middlesex University London and University of London helped launch the Small Talk Saves Lives campaign in the U.K. rail industry in 2017. The research found that a simple exhange between someone contemplating suicide and another person can break a deadly impulse.

Paul Hattlmann knows this first-hand.

As he recalls the fateful seconds on a subway platform 11 years ago, Hattlmann seems to be talking about someone else. He now has the busy energy of a man with a full life that holds the promise of more, and says the despair he felt that day, the day he wanted to die, seems so unreal and so foreign now:

It was his 25th birthday. Hattlmann, a senior solutions engineer in the telecom industry, was on his way to work. He had battled suicidal thoughts before, but as he stood on the subway platform they crashed over him, compelling him to act.

Hattlmann says he began to tremble and cry, and then he locked eyes with a man standing nearby.

"I just said, 'Can you talk to me, just talk to me?' — and he did," Hattlmann says. "He just said, 'OK what's going on, are you OK?' And I said no, I’m not OK.

"That was the start and the end of it. I got on the train and the moment I did, the moment I stood on the train, I just felt this complete sigh of relief. It was just, 'OK, I got through this.'"

The entire episode lasted mere seconds, but Hattlmann says the concern on the other man’s face was a lifeline. The moment was a turning point and set him on a path to recovery.

"I owe my life to him, I guess. I have no idea who that person is. If you walked by me right now I'd never know, I can't even remember what he looks like. But he was just a person that cared, and he was a person who did the right thing."

The TTC is trying to raise awareness that if people are contemplating suicide or just need to talk, help is a phone call away at 416-408-4357 or 416-408-HELP. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

The TTC is trying to raise awareness that if people are contemplating suicide or just need to talk, help is a phone call away at 416-408-4357 or 416-408-HELP. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

That’s yet another question that tortures Karen Padbury. What if someone had talked to her son that day? It was in the middle of the afternoon, there were so many people around.

"I look out here," she says, her eyes welling as she takes in the commuters gathering on the subway platform. "I think OK, where was he in this whole platform area, was somebody watching? Why didn’t somebody say, 'hey buddy,'" she adds, her arm reaching out instinctively to the empty space where her son would have stood.

"So many what-ifs, and I know I'll never get the answers. All I have is this dialogue with myself, and it keeps going on over and over again."

The stories of suffering have taken their toll on O’Grady. They sadden him, he says, and they also frustrate him because the loss of life is so needless.

So while suicide is a raw, difficult conversation, O'Grady says he believes it's one that needs to be had out loud.

"We need to shine a light on it and say, 'you wouldn't want this to happen to anybody in your family, and it is happening to other people's families, and it may happen to somebody in your family,' O'Grady says.

"I think we need to be more open in order to have that dialogue, and so that people can understand why it's so important."

Where to turn for support:

- Crisis Services Canada, 1-833-456-4566 or crisisservicescanada.ca

- Kids Help Phone, 1-800-668-6868 or kidshelpphone.ca



