Merged Not a mass suicide. Electrotherapy via railroad tracks.

[Stray Cat]

Do you have to wait until the train gets close enough to write down it's engine number in your handy pocket book?

It's a totally new twist on dangerous hobbies - Extreme Train Spotting.

 

[Howie Felterbush]

I bet it would cure constipation.

 

[Skepticemea]

Now for a cure for being run over by a big f-off train.

 

[Alan]

Aren't there much safer ways to get a little electric jolt into your body if you think that makes a difference?

I can imagine though that you would feel pretty awesome for a while afterwards just given the adrenal rush you'd experience after almost being run over by a train.

I think that the people trying it do not have much money, so it could seem like their only way.

Good thinking on why they might think it works.

 

[abaddon]

I just saw this reported on ABC 24.

It is a strange alt-med therapy. There are people lying down on train tracks while a train approaches and getting out of the way just in time. They believe that this cures various ailments, for some reason to do with electricity.

It is reported that people who try it swear by its efficacy. More than 50 would do it at the Rawa Buaya tracks every day until recently, when warning signs with threats of punishment were erected. A dozen people still do it.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...dxa1Nw?docId=0e5c096739dd497b846d274a7f44f978

There is a video here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14381928

In a word, "placebo".

In more words, these people are nuts.

 

[rjh01]

Already a thread on the subject Not a mass suicide. Electrotherapy via railroad tracks.

 

[George 152]

Already a thread on the subject Not a mass suicide. Electrotherapy via railroad tracks.

I wonder about the training

 

[MrBooglemaumau]

OK...In the early days this was called 'playing chicken'....Humans are not shape shifting lizards,so when the train amputates an arm,leg,or head, don't expect it to grow back...NB Death is permanent.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

To clear up an apparent misapprehension:

It appears as though they lay on tracks while a train goes by on an adjacent one. Another pic from the link:

But I hate to be the spoiler of good jokes ("extreme train spotting"!

) so everyone, please continue!

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Aren't there much safer ways to get a little electric jolt into your body if you think that makes a difference?

This is exactly what I was thinking. Why bother finding tracks when a set of jumper cables and a car battery can give you quite a jolt? And in the privacy of your own home, too.

 

[Alan]

It appears as though they lay on tracks while a train goes by on an adjacent one. Another pic from the link:

[qimg]http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n94/elmondohummus/nonsmileys/pb-110802-railtherapy-da-02photoblog900.jpg[/qimg]

But I hate to be the spoiler of good jokes ("extreme train spotting"! [qimg]http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n94/elmondohummus/laughing-smiley-007.gif[/qimg]) so everyone, please continue!

From the AP article:

"I'll keep doing this until I'm completely cured," said Mulyati, twitching visibly as an oncoming passenger train sends an extra rush of current racing through her body.

She leaps from tracks as it approaches and then, after the last carriage rattles slowly by, climbs back into position.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...dxa1Nw?docId=0e5c096739dd497b846d274a7f44f978

I do not think it is an unused track next to one that is being used.

And there are the warnings about the dangers of it that have been put up.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Oh. Yeah, I did miss that. Ok, so they lay on the tracks immediately before and after the train. It was bad enough before, in the way I thought at first, but this just makes the delusion that much worse. Yes, someone can get killed doing this. Easily.

 

[Mike!]

Seems less invasive than raping a virgin to cure aids, no less crazy though.

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

I'd be tempted to sneak down the tracks a bit and connect a portable electric fence charger to the tracks. Bzzzzzzzzt! If there was actually voltage (enough to feel, not just low voltage continuity test and signalling) they wouldn't be laying there for long.

 

[Kopji]

According to the AP, track therapy became popular among Indonesians after "a rumor about an ethnic Chinese man who was partially paralyzed by a stroke going to the tracks to kill himself, but instead finding himself cured" started making the rounds.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/2...ve-Than-Government-Healthcare-Say-Indonesians

Don't got to that site, it will give you brain damage. Funny though.

 

[23_Tauri]

Oh. Yeah, I did miss that. Ok, so they lay on the tracks immediately before and after the train. It was bad enough before, in the way I thought at first, but this just makes the delusion that much worse. Yes, someone can get killed doing this. Easily.

And no-one's yet mentioned the train drivers. So unfair on them, because one day some idiot won't get up in time. How traumatic is that for the driver? He's the one who'll need the therapy then.

 

[Alan]

I didn't mention them, but I was certainly thinking of them.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Oh. Yeah, I did miss that. Ok, so they lay on the tracks immediately before and after the train. It was bad enough before, in the way I thought at first, but this just makes the delusion that much worse. Yes, someone will get killed doing this. Easily.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Maus]

maybe the adrenaline makes them feel better.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

Putting two 9-Volt batteries to their tongues would be safer, but not as newsworthy I guess.

They could also try touching model railroading tracks too, but will have to take the third rail on the Lionel tracks into account...