A new electric Caltrain hit and killed a teenager in Menlo Park last night.
The collision occurred north of the Menlo Park depot, at 9:03 p.m., involving southbound train 268. Killed was Dylan Scirpo, 17, of Menlo Park, according to the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office.
Caltrain now has a policy of refusing to publicly report fatalities, but eyewitnesses contacted the Post about the incident.
San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller, who sits on Caltrain’s board, confirmed that he was told about the fatality.
In addition, a Menlo Park Fire Protection District first responder called dispatchers to tell them it was a “10-55,” code for a coroner’s case.
Caltrain is replacing its diesel locomotives with electric ones, and the new trains were celebrated at a Caltrain event in San Francisco on Saturday.
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Perhaps it was a accident. Dylan appeared to be a Menlo-Atherton Water Polo player. Perhaps he was coming home late from the pool, and misjudged the speed of the new trains.
I had a dear friend in high school, long time ago, who did exactly that! He was with a small group of friends walking along the tracks. The rest of the kids saw the train coming but it came so fast that they couldn’t warn him in time. He could not hear their warnings.
Condolences to his parents, family, and friends. May he Rest In Peace.
For grief support try Kara-grief.org and YG2D.org
For your own support, reach out to friends, tell someone…
The word in the community is that it was not an accident. Strange that the reporting here completely avoids that and sounds like the train was at fault. This is also not the first young person in our area we lost this way this year. It’s frustrating that, as a community, we are not confronting this mental health crisis with more openness and honesty.
Julia, the report was made less than 24 hours after the incident, which is still likely under investigation. It says, a “collision occurred” — that is accurate regardless of whether it was an accident or a tragic suicide. We don’t know yet, so let’s lighten up
Lighten up. It was a tragedy either way
I agree with Julia, the way it’s written makes it sound like the train is somehow at fault which is absurd. A more accurate title would be “Another person stepped in front of a train and was killed.” People don’t realize how unfortunately common these suicide by trains are in San Mateo County because typically it is the policy of media not to publicize suicides, Caltrain has their own policies on the matter because it involves incredibly sensitive information and most families aren’t comfortable coming out and saying it was a suicide so soon after the tragedy, so yes it often gets swept under the rug and we as a society need to do more for mental health. I encourage anyone who may be the slightest bit concerned or curious to do a Public Records Act Request for how many deaths on train track there are in any given year. As a former first responder in San Mateo County, and someone went out to a few of these type calls, I can tell you very few were true “accidents” and the poor conductors can’t do anything about it except TRY to slow down the train. You have to realize it’s a very heavy train traveling in a straight line, on a track and if someone is on or near the tracks it is a choice the human made to either ignore all of the signs that say trespassing onto the tracks is illegal, their drunk (also by choice) or they aren’t using common sense and stop their car on the tracks while waiting for a light or traffic etc. (those are not as common but still a deliberate and stupid choice they made to beat traffic).
when i was a kid in SF my grandma took me to her house in Burlingame. Grandpa worked for Sunset Magazine & took the train to SF. we picked him up at end of day. we saved pennies and put them on the track wanting to squash them. train went so fast the pennies flew away & we never found them. was a tad disappointed.
Just look to Palo Alto for measures they used and have improved to all railroad crossings because of the suicides several years ago.
My condolences to the conductor, an unwilling participant in this tragic event
There is an average of one person per day who commits suicide by going in front of a train in America. As you point out, in addition to the tragedy that the dead person’s family faces, the locomotive engineer has the unavoidable traumatic experience of seeing his train kill someone.
Yes, it’s a tragedy all around, for family as well as the conductor and the engineer.
Agreed
Our friends in Europe say that stepping in front of trains is a popular way of ending one’s life voluntarily, but there is also lots of accidents when intoxicated people try to cross railway tracks without paying attention.
We need grade separation. All these lives can be saved with grade separation and local traffic will improve too
what is grade separation?
Where the tracks and the road are at different elevations one crosses over/under the other.
But… while that might fix the “accidents”, it will not deter someone who is intentionally going onto the track.
So very sad to lose a young man with a potentially great future. I extend my condolences to his parents, family, friends, and indeed the conductor of this train.
I realize there will be people who want to hide the fact that a young person died on the tracks. They don’t want to hear about a problem, thinking that will make it go away. I appreciate the Post publishing this information so that we realize there’s a problem in our community that needs to be addressed. Killing the messenger won’t help anyone.
Well said !
I disagree with Robert Eaton and Anonymous. Nobody wants to “hide” the fact that a young person died on the tracks. Caltrain is doing the responsible thing by not advertising the rails as a method to kill yourself. Rail suicide is very susceptible to copycats due to reporting like this article. When was the last time you saw a story like this: A 23-year-old killed himself yesterday in Palo Alto. He used a Glock 17, which is currently selling for $499.00 at Eddy’s Shooting Sports, 400 Moffett Blvd. Suite F, Mountain View CA 94043. Hours: Tuesday – Friday 12PM-5PM Sunday-Monday CLOSED
It is ludicrous that a media outlet would announce the method and the location to obtain the specific means the person used to kill themselves, and yet, that is what is reported in every pedestrian rail strike, whether or not it is subsequently determined to be suicide.
It is surprising to me that some people in the Palo Alto area need to be reminded about rail suicide contagion. It has been a major problem in your area for many years.
Kurt, rail suicide contagion, also known as the copycat theory or the Werther effect, was debunked 20 years ago.
The Werther effect was promoted by American sociologist David Phillips, who counted the number of front-page suicide news stories in the New York Times, between 1947 to 1968, and mapped them against national suicide rates in the month following the announcement of the suicide.
What does one have to do with the other? Not much.
Phillips claimed there’s a correlation, but two re-analyses only partially supported his claim.
But believing there is a relationship between variables even when no such relationship exists is an “illusory correlation,” wrote psychologist Christopher Ferguson in his study on the Werther effect.
William Proctor of Bournemouth University wrote: “Phillips’ methodology has been widely criticized and the research effectively debunked from within the field itself.”
After analyzing the methodology and findings, James Hittner, associate professor of psychology at the College of Charleston, found that “the Phillips data were not supportive of the Werther effect.”
Hittner goes on: “Perhaps the most central statistical concern is that these studies did not control for the positive correlation (i.e., dependency) between the expected and observed suicide rates before examining the impact of media publicity on the observed number of suicides.”
Hittner said that Phillips’ studies were re-analyzed twice and the only partially supported the Werther effect.
A September 30, 2019 article by the University of Bristol self-harm prevention research group says:
“[I]t would be incorrect to conclude that all media coverage of suicide is harmful. Despite compelling evidence, research in the field is characterised by inconsistent findings, with a proportion of research showing no effect,” wrote author Helen Fay.
If the rail suicide contagion theory were true, why hasn’t there been a single death on the tracks since Sunday night?
If the theory were true, how come there weren’t any rail suicides following the railroad death in Sunnyvale on July 24?
Let’s attack this problem with actual facts, not debunked theories. Pushing a bogus theory doesn’t help anyone.
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i knew about the suicides…they had a crossing guard at the intersections but may not have helped. they would just climb over a fence and jump in front when train came. I don’t think they report the suicides any more. do they? S
That was in Palo Alto. Several dozen parents, concerned that the city and Caltrain were doing so little to stop railroad suicides, took matters into their own hands. The parents decided they would sit beside the most notorious crossings. It worked. But the city didn’t like the bad publicity it was getting for its inaction. So the city replaced the parents with hired guards. The only problem is that these guards, who were from poorer communities, would burglarize homes during their breaks. So the city put in cameras it said would detect suicide victims in the act. But the suicides continued and the city wouldn’t release information about the success of the cameras. Now Caltrain is trying to make the problem go away by refusing to release information on suicides to the media. But obviously that isn’t stopping the local media from getting this information from other places.
My condolences to this young man family, friends and community. May his soul rest in peace.
This is so sad. Condolences to his family and friends.
May God bless his sweet soul and give strength to his family and friends through their painful journey. I am on that same grief journey. We are living in very dark days. All the kids Dylan’s age have grown up being told that the world is going to burn up in a matter of a few years, where life no longer has value. They are bombarded 24/7 through social media and online videos with messages that you’re not cool or good enough. Even the most loving family can’t shield their children from the evils facing us today.
True mental health care is pretty much nonexistent, other than giving everyone medication. Hopelessness has become epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are dying every year due to drug overdoses. Who’s in charge here?
Who is setting the priorities? Pay attention. All things are connected.
My condolences to this young man’s family. It’s also sad that agencies like Caltrans want to suppress information about such deaths rather than solving the problem. Censorship isn’t going to make us a stronger community; action will.
Oh Dylan how we all wish you had reached out!! Your work family would have done anything to help you ease your pain!!
You were an amazing human!! You were a great employee!! We valued you and your work ethic!!
I’m going to miss your smiling face!!!
I’m sorry that your sadness won the battle!! Life is unfair and most definitely difficult!!! You are not to blame for your actions!!
The world is a cruel place at times and you are a victim of its stress!!!
I pray for you now and will continue to always!!!
Your pain will never go unnoticed by me or your coworkers!!
We are going to miss you, your smile and dedication to your work!!!
I will never stop praying for your soul and your family!! They have a hole in their heart that will never be filled!!
Sadly I am not new to this battle!!!
I’m so sorry that you felt that this was the only answer!!
Just know that things will never be the same since you left!!
You will always be tucked away in our hearts ❤️❤️❤️❤️
So sad. Another child victim of the crazy, high stress environment that is the Peninsula. If your child is depressed leave this place. There are so many better places to live where getting into an Ivy is not the end all, making a million dollars before you’re 30 is not the minimum bar, and where there is a sense of fun and purpose to life. Life is more than the sh*thole that is the Bay Area for kids.
Sincerest condolences to Dylan’s family, teachers, and friends, and my empathy to the crew of that train.
Maybe Cal Train and VTA should install 988 Lifeline signs at the rail stations
After I was on the Caltrain that had fatally struck a Palo Alto high school student earlier this year, I did a bit of research. Fatality rates are much lower in underground subway systems. This is just one more reason I wish that our public transit system was more like the ones in most other major metropolitan areas in the world.
I look at this article every day and it breaks my heart. Dylan was one of the kindest and funniest people I have known, everybody knew who he was at MA he was a star water polo player and always was at a social event. I wish he knew how much we all loved him, we all miss him so much and our senior year will not be the same without him.
To the people arguing in these comments, you should be sending your love to his family and to our community as we are grieving.
We love you so much Dylan.
I also come back to read this article everyday and haven’t stopped thinking about Dylan since the minute I heard about this situation. I never even met him! yet I can tell from the way people speak about him how amazing he truly was and it’s so heartbreaking to realize the battles people are undergoing without anybody noticing. I’m so sorry for the MA community’s loss and am praying for his friends and family. I hope they know the legacy he has left will not be forgotten, even by strangers like me who weren’t lucky enough to know him.
Dylan, I’m so sorry you ever felt that way and I hope you’ve found well deserved peace.