MTA Workers Injured on the Job

Brooklyn, NY (WorkersCompensation.com) – Metropolitan Transit Authority workers continue to be injured on the job, and some are finding new ways to cope, officials said.

Only July 25, MTA officials said an MTA bus driver suffered a medical episode while driving which caused him to lose control of his bus and crash into a Brooklyn Burger King restaurant.

Fortunately for the driver, one of his passengers was a nurse who rushed to help him when he passed out.

“The bus started speeding up quick,” the nurse passenger told PIX11. “You have to think quick on your feet and before I knew it … we [were] in the Burger King.”

Surveillance video from the street showed the bus traveling recklessly down the streets and narrowly avoiding a car stopped at a red light. When the bus came to a stop inside the restaurant, the passenger began treating him.

The bus driver was taken to Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn where he was initially admitted in critical condition. The driver was not immediately identified.

In Queens, an MTA worker was stabbed on July 24 in an early morning attack.

According to the MTA police, the victim, a 54-year-old man, was working at the Queens station when a verbal dispute broke out. When the worker tried to intervene, the attacker slashed the workers hands.

Police said the worker was taken to Queens Hospital, while the suspect fled the scene.

MTA workers and transit workers across the country have experienced an increase in attacks since the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of this year, transit union officials have asked New York officials for extra protection in the form of added police presence in subway stations and in bus stations.

During an MTA Safety Committee meeting on July 30, officials said the New York City subway system has seen a significant decrease in major crimes. According to the New York City Police Department, the subway system has seen a 15 percent drop in major crime as of June, when compared to the same period last year.

Statistics showed there were 203 major crimes in the subway system in June 2023, but only 172 this year.

"What's even more remarkable is that the robberies recorded in 2024 is the lowest in recorded NYPD history, going back to pre-merger, which is the mid-90s," NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said.

In May, a subway rider tackled an on-duty MTA operator, throwing them to the ground while the two were on board a stopped train in Queens.

Police said the 38-year-old worker was clearing the M-line train of passengers just before midnight. Officials said the straphanger jumped the employee and knocked them to the floor. The employee was taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center with back pain, officials said.

The suspect, a man in his 50s, ran from the train, officials said.

And in late February, union officials called for a work slowdown in response to a number of attacks on workers. Union transit workers tied up rush hour traffic when they stopped to file paperwork en masse before starting their shift.

Some workers have turned to meditation and yoga as a way to cope with the stress from the increased attacks.

Union officials have organized relaxation classes for New York City transit employees as a way to manage their fear and anxiety over rising violent crime on subways and buses. The concern has only grown after the attacks in recent months, officials said, on bus drivers, subway operators and station agents.

Nationally, reported major assaults on transit workers reached a 15-year high in 2023, up 47 percent from 2020, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Transit Administration data. Between 2011 and 2023, assaults on transit workers more than quadrupled, the analysis found.

“We’re in the line of fire every day,” Blanca Acosta De Avalos, a bus driver in Omaha, Neb., who was severely beaten by a rider three years ago, told the AP. “We don’t have no protection.”

After the February attacks, the transit union began offering free relaxation sessions as well as yoga and meditation classes.

“Being a bus operator, you’re pretty much worried about everything at every moment of every day…so you don’t really get a chance to relax,” said Grace Walker, a New York City bus driver. “You’re driving a pretty big machine, and you have a lot of customers’ lives at risk.”

Transit agencies in Omaha and in other cities have begun de-escalation technique classes to help drivers defuse confrontations. In other cities, unions are pushing for protections to isolate drivers, like partitions, officials said.

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