Posted on 05/25/2026 2:06:47 PM PDT by Libloather
A popular graffiti artist was fatally struck by a Brightline train in Florida, local officials say.
On May 13, Eric Alan Hirt, 47, was struck and killed at 12:26 a.m. local time while walking on the tracks in Biscayne Park, Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office (MDSO) Detective Joseph Peguero said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. Eric was hit by an oncoming Brightline train, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office confirmed, according to The Miami Herald.
The Brightline train is one of two high-speed trains in the U.S., traveling as fast as 125 miles per hour. The train began test runs in 2017. Since then, there have been over 200 fatalities associated with Brightline trains that took place near or on the tracks, with Hirt's marking the 206th death, according to a joint investigation conducted by WLRN and The Miami Herald. Brightline has not been found responsible or held liable for any of the deaths.
Shawn Hirt, Eric's wife of 26 years, told The Miami Herald that his death was an accident. She noted that authorities watched footage of the incident and saw him carrying something, then, at the last second, looked up with a “deer in the headlights” reaction.
Eric, who was partially deaf, had repeatedly crossed the unfenced tracks behind their house, Shawn told The Miami Herald. Their home is in a “quiet zone” with no train horn, and it was dark at the time of his death. Police told her the train was traveling at 79 miles per hour, Shawn told the outlet.
"We're devastated," she told the outlet, explaining that they had been living by the tracks for 35 years and now the tracks are just "a constant reminder of what we lost."
(Excerpt) Read more at people.com ...
yes.
the combination of “quiet zone” (no train whistles) and no ROW fencing....
does not sound wise (from a safety perspective)
I must say-I never thought of it in that light!
I’m glad he’s dead.
And I don’t care what anyone thinks about it.
L
47 is too old to still be painting grafitti.
Cut the guy some slack. He was too deaf to see the bright light from the headline.
Or maybe the light was blocked as it came around one of those mountains in Miami.
Ole Buck would be proud. Lol
Agreed. Garbage people are not to be honored as heroes.
One down.
It did kill him, for doing things that no 47 year old should still be engaging in. Not only the graffiti, but walking on train tracks where the trains travel at sppeds of up to 125 mph.
You can hear a train coming from a long way off. Oh, he was deaf. Well, you can feel a train too.
When I was about 20 I knew an 80 some year old guy who was a retired train engineer. He told me he lost count of fatalities but that every single one was the fault of the pedestrian.
It takes miles to stop a train.
Back in 1939-1942, four of us neighborhood kids used to jump on Boston & Maine RR coal cars chugging out of Boston and ride them about 4 miles until they really started to pick up speed...
Then we would jump off, walk back along the track for about 1.5 miles, picking up coal that had fallen off the cars, and take it home...
He shoulda been in Kalifornia. No chance of getting struck by a high-speed train there.
Darwin. Not just a rumor.
“A popular graffiti artist”
I wonder if the author of this stupid article glorifying a vandal would feel the same if their own property was tagged.
I agree. Things do rarely happen. I recall reading some time ago about a guy who was killed because he had stopped to let a train go by, and some guy rear-ended him into the path of the oncoming train and he was killed
But 99% of the time it is just people doing things that common sense would tell them they shouldn't, or doing things they are being explicitly warned about by large red signs with white letters.
I think Brightline is going broke, and may be facing bankruptcy already. Not because of killing people but because they don’t stop in enough places to make money. Bright line runs right across the road from me and that this town would not let them build a station here which would’ve been beneficial to everyone here to get to Orlando airport or Miami Airport, or Fort Lauderdale Airport did Cetera.
“Graffiti Artist.”
We all mourn the loss of a great cultural contributor....
ABSOLUTELY
We were chasing a house burglar on the tracks along the Hudson River and out of a blind turn comes the NYC to Albany train at about 180 mph. We cleared those tracks and when the train passed no sign of the perp. We assumed he jumped into the river never to be seen again. That train was hauli
ng ass
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