[COBOL2Java]

an investigation found that the 20-year-old Brookfield man who wrote the note was deaf and trying to tell the conductor that he had fallen asleep and had a dream the train was exploding, police said. When the deaf passenger awoke, he was worried that his dream might come true and was trying to communicate that to the conductor, they said.

Being somewhat familiar with the deaf culture, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the guy may have been trying to inquire whether there had been an explosion, not that there was going to be one. Pre-lingual deaf individuals can sometimes have difficulty expressing tense in English.

[bgill]

Perhaps, but in the time it took to write the note he could have noticed the other passengers were not in panic mode indicating an explosion had not occured.

[I Shall Endure]

My former BIL was born deaf, and you’re absolutely right. Written communication from the deaf may look like English, but it’s really a foreign language.