Subway Surfing Took the Life of My Middle School Classmate

*Elizabeth Marquez is a student in the 2025 Introduction to Journalism College Now program at CCNY.

In late June of 2023, Briyan Crespo, then 14-years-old, was only five days away from graduating middle school. But, his life was cut short when he was killed while subway surfing on the L train at Broadway Junction in Brooklyn, New York.

I was in 8th grade with Briyan and our class was about to start a new beginning and transition into high school. The day he died was our field day, one of the last moments of our middle school years coming to an end. It was a day to celebrate and chat with everyone we most likely wouldn’t see again after middle school. 

What we didn’t know was that we wouldn’t ever see Briyan Crespo again regardless of where we went to high school.

“When you needed him, he would be there for you, and he would keep it real with you,” one of Briyan’s closest friends, who didn’t want us to use his name, told me. “He was just somebody you could joke around with.”

Subway surfing is a dangerous game in New York. Riders climb on top of the train and try to balance.  While subway surfing deaths are on the rise, this isn’t an entirely new problem. In 1938  Donald, 11, and William, 12, were the first deaths ever recorder because of  a subway surfing accident. Both boys’s skulls were fractured and they were rushed to the hospital. Donald passed away.

Then, in 1996, a 14 year old the same age as Briyan Crespo died while subway surfing.

From 2018 to 2022, five people died subway surfing, and  another five died in 2023. Then, in 2024, six people died. We’re just over halfway through 2025 and six people have already died subway surfing.

The average age of those who have died is 14 years old. The youngest to have been arrested from participating in the trend, according to the New York City Police Department, is just nine. In 2025 the fatalities included an eleven year old, three thirteen year olds, and a fourteen and fifteen year old.

According to MTA data, from January through September of 2024, 2,556 people rode “outside of train cars,” including between cars, which officials say is much more common than subway surfing. 

Briyan’s death, and his funeral, his friend said, brought a lot of groups together because, “he was a person that had a lot of different friends in a lot of different places.”

Now, years later, Briyan’s friend said that he hears our peers still talk about what happened. “They would still be talking about him, and they were, like, still sounding upset,” the friend said.

On  graduation day at IS 093 in Ridgewood, Queens students thought it was supposed to be one of the most relaxing and fun times as we came to the end of middle school. But it was anything but fun or relaxing. After the ceremony it didn’t feel as happy as it was supposed to be. It was quiet. “He was supposed to be graduating with us,” his friend remembered. 

The MTA’s campaign proposal on subway surfing, “Ride inside, stay alive,” includes illustrated comics of people whose lives have been impacted by those who subway surf. There have been multiple videos and photographs on the internet of subway surfing. The MTA has asked social media to take down this media as it encourages subway surfing. 

“It’s really all about the MTA and how they handle it. But sometimes not even that works,” the friend said, adding that subway surfers “are still finding a way to do it regardless.” 

Drones have been used to catch subway surfers in the act and to report it to the train conductors. But, it’s difficult to have drones everywhere at once. Teenagers have also found a loophole to disguise themself on top of the trains. 

An engineering idea brought to the table was to retrofit trains to prevent subway surfing from occurring. A professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Branislav Dimitrijevic, told the New York Post that the cost of this engineering project would be too expensive. Meaning, if this were to be approved, people would have to pay more taxes, something they may not be excited to do.

The friend of Briyan said that subway surfers may be thinking, “‘I’m gonna do it because my friends are doing it and it looks cool.’” 

“People that continue to like subway surfing,” the friend added, “they still do it, and they don’t really care because they assume that person wasn’t smart enough. Some of their homeboys still be doing [subway surfing]” Briyan’s friend explained, “and they still be doing it.”

For teens, trends can be a way of fitting in with society and having that community amongst other peers with the same interest and hobbies. Scientists call it the The Bandwagon Effect—a psychological phenomenon where people are doing it because others are doing it as well. 

“There was a friend. It wasn’t Briyan. It was another friend. He was also surfing the subway. He once told me that when you’re surfing, it just feels good. You just get a sensation. When he gets up there, he feels free,” Briyan’s friend said. It can feel similar to an adrenaline rush from riding roller coasters. 

Social media influences and amplifies trends every day. Videos and photos shown on social media of subway surfing can even appear as cool. When I searched up “subway surfing” on TikTok, one of the first few videos had over 12 million views. 

Mayor Eric Adams spoke about Briyan’s death and blamed the usage of social media, “Today we lost another child,” Mayor Adams said at the time. “The consequences of social media and other addictive online content are tragic and real.” 

Social media can be very unreliable and dangerous as some trends aren’t as safe as they seem. And it’s not just subway surfing. A 14 year old boy named Harris Wolobah participated in a spicy “one chip challenge” and passed away due to cardiopulmonary arrest because of this trend. 

“They take it as a joke, they don’t really listen,” Briyan’s friend said of trends. “Like, for example, when [schools] did assemblies, about vaping and stuff in school, nobody really listens,” they continued, “they are still finding a way to do it regardless.”