Planes, Trains, and PTSD

While you may be afraid of flying, your pilot is certainly not — with these few exceptions outlined by pilot Patrick Smith. It’s been nearly eight years since the last fatal crash of a large passenger jet here in America, an unprecedented streak. Compare that with the last revolution in public transportation: train travel. The first public passenger railroad opened in England in 1825. By the 1860’s, railway accidents had killed, maimed, and otherwise traumatized so many that doctors had to coin a term to describe the shock suffered by rail crash survivors; they called it “railway spine,” and the debate that surrounded it planted the seeds for the study of what we know today as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. [%comments]