If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, it’s important to know that help is available and that suicide is preventable. The National Suicide Lifeline is available 24/7 via phone and text (988) as well as chat (988lifeline.org).
In Berkshire Hathaway’s latest annual report, Warren Buffett highlights an unexpected headwind for Berkshire-owned railroad company BNSF: suicide. Buffett laments that BNSF’s train conductors witness a suicide on the train tracks nearly every day:
An evolving problem is that a growing percentage of Americans are not looking for the difficult, and often lonely, employment conditions inherent in some rail operations. Engineers must deal with the fact that among an American population of 335 million, some forlorn or mentally-disturbed Americans are going to elect suicide by lying in front of a 100-car, extraordinarily heavy train that can’t be stopped in less than a mile or more. Would you like to be the helpless engineer? This trauma happens about once a day in North America; it is far more common in Europe and will always be with us.