There’s another type of injury that’s not quite as evident and that’s post traumatic stress. When individuals work on the railroad, they’re exposed to many life-threatening events. The only thing soft in a railroad an employee once told me, is you. These locomotives weight 80 tons. If you get run over by one, you’re going to lose an arm or a leg or worse. Locomotives can’t steer they go where the tracks are and trains often run on the same tracks in opposing directions. And if somebody makes a mistake somewhere, trains can collide or near collide.

And that is such a traumatic, life threatening experience that even if a person survives, they can still be scarred for life. I’ve had a bunch of these days. I had one on Conrail out east a number of years ago where there was a head on collision. This gentleman jumped and lived but it was so horrifying he was terrified. Terrified. He went through lots of therapy and finally was able to go back to work. But when he went back to work the railroad showed him a video of his own accident as part of a training class, which really set him back. The problem is even with therapy and even with all the best experts that we have, the fear, the loss of trust that you are safe and can protect yourself is what PTSD is about.

I guess the best way I could explain it is all of us could walk across a 2×4 or 10-foot 2×4 if it’s on the ground. Now put it up 10 stories and most of us wouldn’t even think of trying because our minds won’t let us do it. That’s what PTSD is, it’s the mind taking control of a situation. Even if you physically could do it, you’ve done it before, once your mind says that’s not safe, you cannot do it. And so, for employees if they’ve been exposed to a situation where they’re afraid they could be killed or seriously injured they may not be able to go back to work. And lawyers have to be able to explain that to juries for them to understand as I just gave my little example how to make PTSD real.