Metro News Release

For immediate release: January 26, 2010

Red Line resumes normal service after fatal accident

Two Metro track workers fatally struck by track equipment

Normal service resumed on the Red Line at 12:18 p.m. today, January 26, after officials completed the preliminary phase of an on-site investigation into a fatal accident in which two Metro track workers were struck and killed by a piece of track equipment early this morning near the Rockville Metrorail station.

Automatic Train Control technicians Jeff Garrard and Sung Oh were struck and killed by a piece of track equipment at about 1:45 a.m. near the Rockville Metrorail station. They were installing new train control equipment in the track bed along an outbound section of track on the Red Line in the direction of Shady Grove.

Garrard, 49, of Clarksburg, MD, had been a Metro employee since April 1990, and Oh, 68, of Montgomery County, MD, had been a Metro employee since December 1998. The employees were fatally struck by a high rail truck, a large truck that is equipped with special wheels that allow it to drive on the track when electricity that usually powers trains is taken down.

Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Tri-State Oversight Committee and Metro’s Safety Office are continuing to investigate the accident.

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Media contact for this news release: Angela Gates or Lisa Farbstein at 202-962-1051.
For all other inquiries, please call customer service at 202-637-7000.

News release issued at 12:28 pm, January 26, 2010.