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MTA worker killed by D train near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Sep 4, 2026
Modified Sep 4, 2026
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Tdorante10/WikiCommons
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Sep 4, 2026
Modified Sep 4, 2026
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An MTA construction flagger with only 11 months on the job was killed by a passing D train Thursday night, officials said.
The death of Moet McCullum, 41, marks the second deadly incident involving a flagger — a worker who signals train operators to stop or slow down near ongoing track work — with little experience since 2023. That year, Hilarion Joseph, 57, was fatally struck by a D train near the 34th Street-Herald Square subway station. Joseph also had worked as a flagger for less than a year.
New York City Transit president Demetrius Crichlow said McCullum was struck by the southbound train at the 161 Street-Yankee Stadium station after 11:30 p.m.
“This is a difficult day. Last night, we tragically lost a member of our MTA family. … I ask that we all keep Ms. McCullum and her family in our thoughts and prayers,” Crichlow said in a statement.
An internal report of the incident obtained by Gothamist said that a supervisor working with McCullum “felt the wind and heard a train coming around the curve, saw headlights, and the lookout blew the whistle for everyone to clear.” McCullum, the report stated, “froze.”
After McCullum was struck, the train operator told an MTA official he’d been warned about flaggers on the track but hadn’t seen any warning lights, prompting him to drive the train at normal speed, according to the internal report.
An official with the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents MTA flaggers, confirmed McCullum had worked for the agency for less than a year. The official said she had three children.
In a separate document, the MTA pulled all construction flaggers off the tracks for 24 hours for retraining on safety.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was “launching a go team” to investigate Thursday’s incident. Following the 2023 incident, the Federal Transit Administration sent a set of directives to New York state’s Public Transportation Safety Board, calling on the MTA to improve its safety protocols.
The directives cited dozens of “near-miss” events where MTA employees were at risk of being struck by moving trains just in 2023.
Tagged
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public safety
transportation
Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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