Wayne Parker

Said the following about Lydia Kozockyj:

“Lydia was working at a train station conducting revenue duties. Lydia became suspicious of a male due to his body language as it was different from regular passengers. Lydia observed a male acting in a furtive manner, he was walking up and down at the front of the station looking towards her direction. Lydia was conducting a manual ticket check due to the gate line being down. Several minutes later the male approached the gate line, he tried to walk past Lydia without showing a ticket. Lydia stopped the male and asked to see his ticket, the male replied `I haven't got one and I don't need to show one, I'm not bothering about a ticket I'm gonna go upstairs and go on the train track and you're not stopping me.` The male was carrying two large bags. the male kept repeating you're not gonna stop me you're not gonna stop me and he was swearing and seemed very very upset. The male pushed past Lydia and started to walk at pace up the stairs towards platform one which was the London bound platform. Lydia ran up the opposite side of the staircase to try and overtake the male and met him at the top of the staircase. The male tried walking past Lydia. While trying to deal with the male Lydia managed to flag down a member of staff and ask for a line block. Lydia was still talking to the male, and he was still adamant he wanted to throw himself in front of a trainLydia still stood in front of the male on tried her utmost to speak and to converse with the male whilst still standing in front of the male. Lydia stood with the male for 20 minutes talking to him, trying to understand, trying to empathise with him and then through sheer perseverance managed to convince him to leave the platform and exit to the front of the station where she sat with him on a bench waiting for a BTP to arrive. The male explained to Lydia that he had all his belongings and had taken £35,000 in cash out of the bank so he could leave for his family, the male also told Lydia that he had terminal cancer and at the NHS had stopped providing any further on care as there was nothing else they could do. Lydia kept conversing with the male and kept trying to talk about other things. Trying to keep his mind occupied and focused on a general topic. After about 30 minutes the male began to slowly calm down and discussed general topics with Lydia, like each other’s family, what they liked, favourite food etc. This whole incident lasted for around 2 hours before the police arrived. The male knew the police were on the way but when they did arrive the male thanked Lydia for spending that time on effort talking to him and stood up and gave her a hug. The male was then taken off by the police who provided further support for him.

Lydia's actions and intuition in this intervention stopped a series of life-threatening situations from happening. Lydia had recognized the signs that the passenger was not displaying normal body language. Lydia placed herself into a potentially risky situation to save the male from jumping onto the tracks. Lydia was very conscious she could not leave the male alone. Lydia is an amazing person and is great with our passengers. Lydia showed compassion, empathy, and support.Lydia used open questions as this helped them talk and express. The impact of saving the male’s life had a huge knock on by not delaying trains across the network, and impacting our customers

This was a great intervention.“