The subway operator who hit Moet McCullum — a track worker and mother of three — while she was working on the tracks near the 161st St. D train station in the Bronx tried to stop the train, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board released Wednesday.
According to the NTSB’s preliminary report, the train operator had the train up to about 28 mph when he “saw workers on the track,” and hit the train’s emergency brake “a few seconds before the accident” on Sept. 3.
While the rest of her crew “cleared up” to a safe location in the middle of the tunnel — between the Manhattan-bound track and an out-of-service center track — McCullum was alone, at the edge of the tunnel, near the benchwall when she was hit, the NTSB also noted.
“All flaggers in the train’s path, except one, reached a safe location,” the report reads. “The employee who was fatally injured was positioned near the bench wall next to [the downtown track] at the time of the alert and did not reach a safe location.”
As first reported by the Daily News, the operator of the Manhattan-bound D train that hit McCullum had been told there were workers on the track up ahead after pulling into the 167th St. station in Highbridge.
Despite NYC Transit policy requiring him to continue on at “restricted speeds” of 10 mph or less until he reached the next station, the operator later told a supervisor that he ran the train at normal speeds when he didn’t see any “flagging lights” warning him of workers up ahead.
McCullum was in the process of setting those lights out when the train bore down upon her.
Courtesy of family
MTA worker Moet McCullum was killed by a D train in the Bronx. (Courtesy of family)
The brief NTSB initial report does not assign blame and largely confirms information already reported by this newspaper and others. But the few new details add to the tragedy of McCullum’s death with less than a year on the job.
As previously reported, another track worker saw the train coming as it rounded the curve into the 161st. St. station and blew a whistle to alert McCullum and others.
According to an internal NYC Transit report reviewed by the Daily News, a supervisor who was on the tracks with the work crew reported that McCullum “froze” after the whistle was blown.
The NTSB investigation is ongoing, and a full report is expected upon its conclusion.
In the meantime, NYC Transit has implemented a series of new rules for setting up worksites, requiring flaggers to ride subways into the tunnels in order to set up the first set of warning lights.
“Losing Moet McCullum was a lot for the entire team — we are a family,” NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, said Wednesday when asked about the ongoing investigation and ongoing efforts to improve track worker safety. “Moet’s sister Monet is a flagger herself. We all feel that pain the same, whether its friends, family, we feel it.”
