A 60-year-old New London man who told police he was despondent over the death of his fiancée got off the train at the Darien station last Wednesday and tried to commit suicide by lighting his jacket on fire as he wore it.
Instead of death, the result of the attempt were “minor, non-life-threatening injuries,” said police Sgt. Jeremiah Marron, a department spokesman who went to the scene. The man was taken to Stamford Hospital for treatment of his injuries, physical and emotional.
A driver on the Post Road, stopped at a traffic light, reported the fire to police shortly before 5 p.m. The caller said that as the man’s jacket was burning he stood on the stairs on the east side of the station (the side closer to Dunkin Donuts) waving his arms. The flames were large.
When police got to the station, the man was standing there, shirtless and burned, holding the remains of his jacket. The man admitted he had lit it on fire and that he previously had tried to commit suicide.
He told police that he had been in New Haven with some friends, but had become upset and took a westbound train. He then got off in Darien for some reason. He would not provide police with contact information for any of his family, but he did agree to have an ambulance take him to Stamford Hospital for treatment.