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Robert Enke in express train suicide after death of baby daughter

Germany was in utter shock today after Robert Enke, the country’s top goalkeeper, died after being hit by an express train traveling at 100 m.p.h yesterday evening.

Police believe Robert committed suicide.

Friends say Robert had been deeply depressed and was engaged in therapy after struggling to come to terms with the death of his two-year-old daughter, Lara, in 2006. She died from a rare heart condition.

Robert Enke visited her grave every day, only a short distance from where he killed himself.

His widow Teresa identified his remains and went into deep shock, now believed to be under sedation.

Enke had driven his black Mercedes 4X4 to the railway station, which is less than two miles from his home. After walking along the platform in the dark, he threw himself under the wheels of the regional express 4427.

Officers are expected to release more information later today.

Joerg Neblung a friend of Enke told reporters that it was definitely suicide, and said: “He took his own life.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin expressed her “great sadness” at the news of his death and said her entire government sent its condolences to his family.

Oliver Bierhoff, the national team manager, said of the death of 32-year-old Enke: “Words fail us at his loss.

“The entire team, everyone, is in deep shock.”

Tenerife also paid tribute to their former player for whom Enke played on loan as a youngster.

Robert Enke, leaves behind a widow and another daughter, eight-month-old Leila, whom the couple adopted in May 2009.

         

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Baby Fae, the 25 year anniversary of a ground breaking procedure

It’s a special day for Dr. Leonard Bailey, 66, who gained international fame in 1984 after transplanting a baboon’s heart into an infant girl. Twenty-five years ago today, the eyes of the world were on a baby girl who needed a heart, Baby Fae.

Stephanie “Fae” Beauclair died less than a month after receiving a baboon heart, however, more than 500 young patients since have received heart transplants at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

“The bottom line is Baby Fae’s legacy is a strong one - there have been several thousand babies salvaged now who would not (have made it) otherwise,” said Dr. Leonard Bailey.

“I think she sent word around the world that people should think about newborns, too.”

Cross-species organ transplants are gone due to controversies over potential infections. But the Baby Fae transplant paved the way for the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant in a child a year later.

Bailey said: “The majority of these children were programmed from conception to not be in this world ever more than just birthing and dying. Their lifespan was in days. When you think about it it’s really quite amazing the quite large cadre of kids who have grown up,

“In those days, the advice to parents was to leave the baby here to die or take it home to die,” Bailey recalls.

On the day of her death, the surgeon made a rare public appearance to inform members of the press gathered outside the hospital. Reports said he was nearly breaking with emotion. “Infants with heart disease yet to be born will some day soon have the opportunity to live, thanks to the courage of this infant and her parents,” Time magazine reported him as saying.

Bailey has spent his life working to lengthen the lifespan of infants born with an untimely death sentence. Many stay in contact.

Teresa, Baby Fae’s mother, is working hard to put herself through nursing school in Kansas. She and Bailey will reunite October 31 for the debut of a documentary titled Stephanie’s Heart: The Story of Baby Fae.