{"id":338937,"date":"2026-09-05T18:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T18:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/338937\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T18:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T18:10:23","slug":"family-of-mta-trackworker-killed-by-oncoming-bronx-subway-train-want-truth-about-fatal-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/338937\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of MTA trackworker killed by oncoming Bronx subway train want ‘truth’ about fatal crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The grieving family of an MTA trackworker killed by an oncoming D train<\/a> in the Bronx is demanding a full and thorough investigation into the fatal crash that tore a cherished mom away from her three children and twin sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way to go around it. We just want the truth,\u201d Thomas Tyrell, the brother-in-law of MTA worker Moet McCullum told the Daily News Saturday. Tyrell is married to Moet\u2019s twin sister, Monet. \u201cWe just want justice and the truth, and something has to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just no way a person can go to work and just (get) killed at work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McCullum, 41, was setting up flagging lights on the tracks between 167th St. and 161st St. along the D line in Highbridge when she was hit by an oncoming train shortly after 11:30 p.m. Thursday, MTA officials said.<\/p>\n

The flagging lights warn oncoming trains to a work crew on the line, but the D train operator who hit her reported not seeing any such lights before striking McCullum, according to sources.<\/p>\n

The track worker was taken to\u00a0Lincoln Hospital<\/a>, where she died.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sooo hurt, angry and confused!\u201d her sister<\/a>, an MTA conductor, wrote on Facebook Friday. \u201cMy heart is literally shattered into pieces. Never in a million years did I ever think I\u2019d be on this earth without you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow who ima call every day? Who gonna call me?? My heart is hurting. I hope I can live with this broken heart!\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\"MTA<\/p>\n

Courtesy of family<\/p>\n

MTA worker Moet McCullum was killed by a D train in the Bronx. (Courtesy of family)<\/p>\n

Tyrell said McCullum had only worked for the MTA for 11 months. She usually worked as a train conductor but was assigned to track maintenance on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if she switched to flagging or if she was trying it out,\u201d said Tyrell, who added that train operators on the D line were told a scheduled construction project and track maintenance were taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The driver) was told that there was flaggers in the tunnel before he left the station,\u201d he said. \u201cHe still proceeded to go in the tunnel at full speed. It was said he didn\u2019t see the yellow, but when you\u2019re going through the tunnel and you know there\u2019s flaggers, slow down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t supposed to be going too fast,\u201d Tyrell added. \u201cSimple.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to some accounts, McCullum froze when she saw the train barreling toward her and couldn\u2019t get out of the way in time, but Tyrell said if the train was going at full speed, none of that would have mattered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she froze up like that (it) means she saw it and it was just too late,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cIt just scares me to know that the last thing she saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCullum grew up in Brooklyn and had three children, a pair of twin sons, 19, and a 21-year-old daughter. She also doted on her 2-year-old grandchild, relatives said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(She) always kept a smile on her face. She joked a lot. She was just basically fun to be around,\u201d Tyrell said. \u201cShe just was a cool person. Everybody loved her. She had a lot of family that love her and she had a lot of friends that love her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news of her death has hit the family like a sledgehammer, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that\u2019s taking it the worst is her mom and my wife, her twin sister,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was her best friend. They text all day, go out together, they eat together. They did everything together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just grieving, devastated,\u201d he said. \u201cAs far as her kids, it (hasn\u2019t) really hit them yet. They cry, but it\u2019s not really hitting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News<\/p>\n

A D train. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Both the MTA and the federal National Transportation Safety Board<\/a> were investigating the fatal crash.<\/p>\n

MTA and union officials said being a flagger is \u201cinherently dangerous work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re working under live service, keeping New York moving, you\u2019re going to have issues,\u201d John Chiarello, head of Transport Workers Union Local 100, said Friday. Chiarello rose to union leadership after being a signal maintainer for NYC Transit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only was a life lost, but the train crew that were involved will be traumatized for the rest of their lives,\u201d Chiarello added.<\/p>\n

NYC Transit worker Hilarion Joseph was also in his first year on the job when he was struck by a D train and\u00a0killed while flagging for a track-cleaning crew<\/a>\u00a0in November 2023.<\/p>\n

Another flagger, not publicly identified, suffered severe head trauma in 2024\u00a0after he was hit by an out-of-service F train in Brooklyn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both incidents were cited in\u00a0a scathing Federal Transit Administration assessment<\/a>\u00a0in 2024, which demanded that the MTA\u00a0improve its safety procedures<\/a>\u00a0and that the state\u2019s Public Transportation Safety Board\u00a0step up its oversight<\/a>\u00a0of New York City Transit.<\/p>\n

The MTA appealed that report, saying the findings mischaracterized the agency\u2019s safety record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The grieving family of an MTA trackworker killed by an oncoming D train in the Bronx is demanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,127052,141,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-338937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-moet-mccullum","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}