Another challenge on TikTok? ‘Surfing’ in New York subway leaves seven dead this year

The challenge of “surfing” or climbing between or on moving carriages in the New York subway has caused the death of at least seven people so far this year, including several teenagers, local media reported this Friday.

The most recent was recorded this Thursday, when a 14-year-old boy lost his life when he fell from the top of the locomotive, according to the NBC channel.

The victim, identified as Jevon Fraser, was found on a Queens County station platform with head trauma and died shortly after at the hospital where he was admitted.

This is the second incident in a week in which a child has been killed by “to surf” on the subway, after Brian Crespo died last Thursday and the 14-year-old friend who accompanied him was injured after falling from the roof of a train car traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Zachery Nazario, 15, died in February. Fraser’s death is the seventh that has occurred in these circumstances, according to sources from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the state agency that manages the city’s transit network, quoted by NBC. .

NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper has said that the vast majority of subway surfers are 12 and 13 year olds and has reiterated that this is not about waves and the subway system is not a playground.

After Fraser’s death, the mayor Eric Adams asked the TikTok platform to remove the videos featuring kids surfing the subway, many of which have had millions of views.

Both Adams and other city councilors have called for more to be done to curb this dangerous practice.

Following the death of Jevon Fraser, TikTok expressed condolences to the boy’s family and friends, noting that the subway surfing trend predates the platform.

He further stated that “More than 40,000 security professionals are dedicated to keeping our community safe and work diligently to remove harmful content when they find it.”NBC noted.

In 2022, 928 incidents of people traveling on top of the train, between the carriages or hanging from the sides were recorded, compared to 490 in 2019, before the pandemic forced the reduction of passengers on the metro line.

Source: EFE