Real Weird: Bodies stored in MTA employee break rooms

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It's an unfortunate fact that hundreds of people have died on the tracks of the New York subway system over the years, for various reasons – accidents, suicides, acts of violence. Whenever someone dies in the subway, the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit works to remove the body from the tracks and platforms as quickly as possible, doing their best to give humane treatment to the deceased while also making sure that the transportation system can get running again without too much of a delay.

The bodies are removed so quickly, there often isn't enough time for someone from the Medical Examiner's Office to get there in time to take them away immediately. Sometimes the bodies will remain in the subway for hours. So where do the bodies go while they're waiting for someone to take them away?

According to MTA employees and the Transport Workers Union, these "leaking corpses" are stored in the nearest room – like employee break areas and even their lunch room. As you can imagine, the MTA employees who then encounter these bodies while doing their jobs are quite rattled by the sight of them.

One employee told the New York Post that she saw officers handling a body in the employee bathroom one day.

They weren’t aware that I was coming in and I wasn't aware that they were in there. All I remember seeing was a black bag with purplish stuff."

When the employee returned to the bathroom during her lunch break later in the day, she saw 

hair and scalp and basically body parts in the sink."

I wouldn't be eating any lunch after seeing that if I were that employee.

Union officials are calling on Mayor de Blasio to provide more staffing for the Medical Examiner's Office so the bodies can be removed from the subway faster, sparing employees from having to endure the trauma of seeing them. MTA employees who see the bodies are sometimes so traumatized that they need to take time off from work afterward, and even then the images remain stuck in their psyche for good.

The NYPD and the Medical Examiner are working on reducing their response times, but in the meantime the bodies of people who die on the subway tracks will continue to be taken to the nearest room, whatever that room may be.