CTA Accident

Just found out that I didn’t publish this post on Sunday when I wrote it (and was wondering why everybody reacted to my lost nail, and nobody reacted on this one). Anyway, publishing it now.

Today, we went to the matinee performance of West Side Story in the Lyric Opera. “Us” included me, my mom, and my neighbor. I chose a matinee performance for this show a long time ago because I thought that that was the show that my mom would enjoy.

She did; she liked it to the extent that she didn’t make any negative comments. But I wanted to share something else about this outing.

Most of the time, I try to take Uber when I take mom out; however, the last couple of days were impossible with all the road construction and Taylor Swift concerts, so after consulting with my neighbor, I decided that we would take the Red line and then a bus to Lyric opera. 

We started way in advance, and the train was on time. However, as it often happens on the Red line, a person asking for “some change” appeared. I give to people on the streets most time, but I never give on the CTA, because that’s a violation, and there are many other places where people can ask for money.

I ignored the requests. Requests turned into hysterical crying (Anybody! Anybody! Any change!!!) Since this is not an unusual scene, and since I had mom with me, I didn’t pay much attention to the development of the event, and the next thing I realized (after the fact) was that this woman tried to commit suicide and managed to almost completely open the doors while the train was running.

The CTA crew stopped the train, then they came and escorted this woman to the front of the train and called for police assistance. We were very close to Sheridan station, but we could not move until the train crew received confirmation that the police arrived and were ready to take this person into custody.

We sat there for 25 minutes with the train engine off (and consequently the A/C off). I was afraid that we would be late (my neighbor was waiting for us by the Lyric entrance), but also, this whole situation was so horrible and hopeless…