Fatality is Third in 14 Months

The death of a Metro worker this morning, who was struck and killed by a Yellow Line train, marks the third such fatality in about a year.

Two Metro workers, who have not yet been identified, were hit by a train near the Eisenhower Avenue station around 9:30 a.m. Another worker was also struck and critically injured.

On May 15, Metro employee Jong Won Lee, 49, was struck and killed at the Dupont Circle Metro station. Lee had just finished repairs on a piece of track equipment and was walking back to the station between the tracks. Trains were running in both directions, and when Lee stepped back to avoid a northbound train, he was hit by a southbound train.

Michael Waldron, a 47-year-old Metro worker, died two weeks after being hit by a Metro train near the Braddock Road stop in Alexandria on Oct. 1, 2005. Waldron and his crew had been finishing up work for the day on a retaining wall near the station when a southbound train hit him as he bent over the track to pick up a cord. Waldron's death was the first in eight years for the system. A Metro investigation found that the accident was caused by the failure of a Metro supervisor and the train operator to follow basic safety rules. Waldron's supervisor had not alerted Metro's control center to the presence of workers in the area, and the operator broke rules by failing to blow his horn when he saw workers on the tracks.

Over the summer, Metro enacted tighter safety procedures in the wake of the two workers' deaths. Trains are now required to slow to 15 mph when they approached work sites, and workers are required to check in hourly with Metro's control center, which monitors train movement.