New York City officials said a 14-year-old boy died after police found injuries consistent with a fall of several stories from a subway train while suspected “subway surfing” activity was underway. An 18-year-old man was found after landing on the elevated sub
For the second time in days, New York’s subway became the scene of a preventable tragedy.
New York City police responded to a 911 call just before 6 p.m. on May 22, after two people were reported to have fallen while suspected of “subway surfing” atop a J train in Manhattan over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn.
Officers found a 14-year-old boy with injuries indicating he fell several stories to the street level, and an 18-year-old man who landed on the elevated subway tracks. Both were unconscious and unresponsive when police arrived, NYPD said.
First responders transported them to Bellevue Hospital. Hospital staff pronounced the 14-year-old boy dead, police said, while the 18-year-old was listed in critical condition. The investigation is ongoing, and the boy’s identity was pending, police said.
“This is a preventable tragedy,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a social media post. “No family should get a phone call like that. Subway surfing is deadly. My heart breaks for the families of these young people.”
Officials have been sounding alarms about the trend for years. Subway surfing involves climbing on top of moving train cars. a dangerous stunt that has spread online. where some videos are filmed and shared. City leaders have pointed to the risk that social media exposure can make the activity feel normal to youth even as it leads to serious injuries and death.
In response, officials launched the “Subway Surfing Kills − Ride Inside, Stay Alive” public information campaign to deter the dangerous activity. The Metropolitan Transit Authority has also worked with social media companies to remove subway surfing videos.
New York City has additionally sued social media companies for alleged harms to youth mental health, citing subway surfing.
Demetrius Crichlow, the New York City Transit President, called the latest fatal incident “heartbreaking.” In a statement, he said: “I’m imploring families, friends, teachers, and others coming into contact with teens engaging in these suicidal stunts to get them to stop.”
NYPD said it began tracking subway surfing in 2022, when police described the trend’s emergence. The city’s toll reflects how persistent the hazard has become: NYPD said there were five deaths in 2025 due to subway surfing, six in 2024, and five in 2023.
In the latest case, the sequence that led to the fatal fall remained under investigation—along with whether the incident unfolded as suspected on top of the moving J train near the Williamsburg Bridge.
NYC subway surfing NYPD J train Williamsburg Bridge Bellevue Hospital transit safety Zohran Mamdani Demetrius Crichlow social media public information campaign
Subway surfing has been stupid since forever. Hope they at least get the guy charged.
Wait so he fell off like… while it was still moving? That’s insane. Social media really does normalize anything now, like people think it’s a game.
Not to be that guy but if he was “surfing” on top of the train, that’s basically suicide by definition. I saw something like this on TikTok last week and thought it was staged.
They keep saying “remove the videos” like that fixes it. I feel like the bigger issue is nobody stops them on the platform in the first place. Also how did the 18-year-old even land on the tracks twice in days? Sounds like poor safety or wrong info in the article, idk.