An MTA worker in Manhattan died early Wednesday morning after being struck by a train while working on subway tracks.
The employee, Hilarion Joseph, 57, was working as a flagger on the tracks near 34th Street-Herald Square just after midnight when he was struck by an uptown D train just after midnight on Wednesday, police said.
Joseph was dragged under the train and run over as a result. Paramedics rushed him to Bellevue Hospital, but he could not be saved.
Flaggers’ job involves keeping other crew members safe as they work on railroad tracks, signaling to train operators to slow down as they approach work sites. Joseph was several hundred feet into the subway tunnel protecting a crew cleaning the tracks, said MTA New York City Transit President Rich Davey.
MTA officials said they had ordered a 24-hour pause on “non-essential track work” throughout the subway system following the fatal incident. More than 7,000 employees are being refreshed on safety protocols for working on tracks, said the MTA’s subways chief Demetrius Crichlow.
“We obviously take employee safety seriously, and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family,” said Davey. “These are dangerous jobs that we ask our people to do day-in and day-out, and that includes folks working around active third-rail and track.”
Transport Workers Union Local 100, the union representing tens of thousands of transit employees, said on X (formerly Twitter) that Joseph’s death “points up the dangerous nature of our jobs as we work to move NYC 24/7.”
Police continue to investigate the incident.
