Shahid Naqvi: Desolation and lack of compassion in M6 horror peep show
Did you see that video of those Swedish twins trying to commit suicide on the M6 last month?
It’s probably one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. The footage is easy enough to track down on the internet should you wish.
But even for the purpose of research for this column, I was reluctant to look at it again.
Not far from here, just outside Stoke-on-Trent, those two young women, who do not look much older than their mid-twenties, flung themselves into the fast lane of on-coming traffic.
Stopped by police as they walk along the central reservation, one breaks away and is hit head-on by a 44-tonne truck.
Her sister, who has just witnessed her twin being mowed down and as far as she knows killed, then attempts to do the same.
She is hit by a car and also appears fatally injured.
Minutes later she regains consciousness and again attempts to fling herself in front of oncoming traffic but is restrained by six police officers.
Set against the grey motorway on a washed out autumnal day, it’s as bleak a vision as it gets.
The girls survived, but what could have been going through their minds to want to end their lives in this way?
What hellish place must these apparently healthy looking women in the prime of life been in to decide getting crunched under the wheels of a lorry was a better option than to carry on living?
I trawled the net to see if there were any reports that might offer an insight or explanation.
The most I could glean, beyond the cold factual accounts of the incident after it happened, was that one of the girls may have been on the run after allegedly stabbing someone.
But even that wasn’t enough to explain their horrific suicide attempt. There was a suggestion – unfounded as far as I’m aware – that the girls may have been on drugs. That, too, seemed too shallow an explanation for the scenes of pure desolation.
What was most disturbing about my web trawl was the nature of many of the comments on various forums I came across referring to the incident.
Take this from one devoted to Alpha Romeo owners: “They don’t deserve any help and I would make them pay for the time of the emergency services that they wasted”.
Or this, from the same forum: “Soo ... on drugs, raving mad or just lost on the way to Ikea?”
A recurring theme on other sites was to refer to the pair as “mental Swedish sisters” or “Swedish sisters going mental on the M6”.
And what about this comment left on such an august publication as London’s Evening Standard newspaper: “I know lots of Swedish women and that constitutes a quiet night in”.
Am I missing something, or am I on my own in feeling that the act of these two sisters warrants something more than jokes?
I understand there is a phenomenon of using humour to help deal with and process tragedy. And that the internet is largely populated by social misfits.
But what struck me most was the complete absence anywhere I looked of any word of compassion towards these two clearly very disturbed people.
Quite obviously anyone wanting to die in this way needs help. Quite obviously, they are suffering mentally to believe their lives are of such little value that they should be smashed out of existence on a motorway.
You’d think at least mental health charities such as Mind might have something to say about this.
But nothing.
And what about the Church? Surely they would have some words of compassion for such a tragic pair? Suicide, after all, is supposed to be a sin isn’t it?
But again, nothing. And if they can’t even bring some humanity to such a public act of despair, then what hope do we have?
