Queens Transit Worker Killed After Falling into Subway Track
A 58-year-old subway signal repairman with the initials L.M. was killed last week after scaling a wall to repair one of the traffic signal lights in the train tunnel. The New York Daily News reports that L.M. worked as a signal maintainer in New York for eight years. He commonly moved across the walkways inside the tunnel which called a bench walls to place lights and signals where they were needed. It was during this activity that he slipped and fell.
The elderly man tumbled into the track bed just as a subway train zoomed towards him. The Jamaica E-Train crushed L.M. and police announced his death at the gruesome scene. One source claims that the subway train conductor activated his emergency brakes, but they did not slow the train in time.
L.M. worked as a Metro Transit Authority (MTA) employee commonly known as a “flagger.” He was in charge of making sure that all lights and warning signs were put in place to inform approaching subway trains that construction was taking place up ahead. At the time of his death, L.M. was pulling a rolling tool bag that had the lights inside.
This is not standard Transit Authority equipment, and investigators suspect that the bag may have something to do with the tragedy. L.M. injured his shoulder early last year, and was not able to carry the bags that were typically issued to MTA workers. Some officials think that the rolling bag may have caught on a bar or the tracks and pulled L.M. off the wall and into the track bed. Other investigators say that the wall where L.M. had been walking was loose, and this may have caused the accident.
The Police Commissioner of Queens suggested that L.M. fell when his bag snagged on the subway train and pulled him under the wheels. The accident happened around 3:21 a.m. on April 25th. Authorities shut down the subway station after the accident while the FDNY and NYPD arrived at the scene to investigate. A rookie signal maintainer was with L.M. at the time of the accident and was holding open the gate to the platform when the worker fell over.
A passenger that was on the train at the time of the accident says that he felt a thump when the worker was hit and didn’t realize what had happened until afterwards. Police boarded the train and instructed that all the passengers get off. The Transport Workers Union Local says that subway work is extremely dangerous. Injuries and fatalities are common in this work environment. If you have been injured or your loved one was killed in a subway accident, you may be able to hold the employer responsible. Talk to a New York City personal injury lawyer at Greenberg & Stein today for more information!