Two 14-year-old boys were killed while participating in the dangerous stunt of subway surfing in the New York City subway.
On the evening of the 29th, officers of the New York Police Department were called to the 33rd Street and Rawson Street subway station in Queens. There, they found a young boy, Jevon Fraser, unconscious on the platform of the 7 train. The boy had suffered injuries indicative of a fall from a significant height. Despite receiving immediate medical attention at a local hospital, Fraser could not be saved.
A similar tragedy unfolded a week earlier, on June 22, at the Bushwick Avenue and Aberdeen Street subway station in Brooklyn. Two 14-year-old boys were found on the L train tracks. One of the boys, Brian Crespo, was pronounced dead at the scene. The second boy was transported to a nearby hospital in a critical condition.
Unfortunately, these incidents reflect a recurring problem. Recently, a 12 year old boy was stopped by police for the fourth time for “surfing”, this despite his having fallen off a train car in April and receiving head injuries and lacerations. Subway surfing, where an individual rides atop a train car, continues to pose a significant risk to young people across the city. It presents a constant challenge for authorities who strive to increase awareness about the inherent dangers of this practice and prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
