A false alarm at the train station

Imagine you’re waiting for a train at the station. You are full of stuff with one 25kg, one 10 kg luggage, a backpack, a ukulele, and a camera hanging around your neck. You have comfortably placed yourself on a bench near the platform, mostly busy with Instagram, intermittently checking the clock for the train.

Suddenly, you hear an alarm, and see some officials screaming “Run.. Run..Run.. Go outside the station” on top of his lungs. “There’s a gas leakage!”

What will you do in this situation? Ideally, you will try to take all your stuff and leave the station. But, imagine everyone is running furiously, which makes you even more nervous since you get a sense of some impending disaster. You also try to run, but those weights are dragging you down, and there is a staircase. You don’t want to leave your stuff there, and you managed somehow halfway up the stairs, while the officer is screaming at you. Leave it there, there’s a gas leakage! Frightened and nervous, you stumbled, and your 25 kg luggage rolled down the stairs. Finally, you decided to leave your luggage and run away. Breathing heavily, pounding heartbeat, exhausted, trying to run with a big bag, you managed to escape the station.

A few weeks ago, I encountered this situation at Amsterdam Sloterdijk train station on August 28, 2023. I was extremely nervous. After coming outside, under the anxious situation, unable to figure out what’s gonna happen, hopefully waiting for the situation to get under control, a few things came to mind. “Why in the first place did I try to run with all the baggage? I could have left them there and run. Are those things more important than life? The delay of a few minutes could have had serious repercussions.” It was fortunate enough that the alarm was false, and nothing happened. But the way I reacted to the initial evacuation instructions from an official was not rational. I learned valuable lessons that day and understood what to do during such an emergency.

Here are a few things I realised that day:

• While packing things, keep all the important documents and accessories in the backpack, which is easier to carry and does not hinder movement during the evacuation.

• Leave all the other baggage and things you need extra effort to carry at their position when there is an alarm. Just run towards the exit. Do not waste energy and exhaust yourself carrying those weights. No one will steal it. Even thieves love their lives.