An MTA construction flagger with only 11 months on the job was killed by a passing D train Thursday night, officials said.<\/p>\n
The death of Moet McCullum, 41, marks the second deadly incident involving a flagger \u2014 a worker who signals train operators to stop or slow down near ongoing track work \u2014 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<\/a>. Joseph also had worked as a flagger for less than a year.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a difficult day. Last night, we tragically lost a member of our MTA family. \u2026 I ask that we all keep Ms. McCullum and her family in our thoughts and prayers,\u201d Crichlow said in a statement.<\/p>\n An internal report of the incident obtained by Gothamist said that a supervisor working with McCullum \u201cfelt the wind and heard a train coming around the curve, saw headlights, and the lookout blew the whistle for everyone to clear.\u201d McCullum, the report stated, \u201cfroze.\u201d<\/p>\n After McCullum was struck, the train operator told an MTA official he\u2019d been warned about flaggers on the track but hadn\u2019t seen any warning lights, prompting him to drive the train at normal speed, according to the internal report.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In a separate document, the MTA pulled all construction flaggers off the tracks for 24 hours for retraining on safety.<\/p>\n