Kids in New York Keep Dying While ‘Subway Surfing’ on Top of Trains. Can They be Stopped?
5th October 2025
Ka’Von Wooden loved trains. The 15-year-old had an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City’s subway system and dreamed of becoming a train operator.
‘Ka’Von’? No need to inquire into his ethnicity, I guess.
Instead, on a December morning in 2022, Ka’Von died after he climbed to the roof of a moving J train in Brooklyn and then fell onto the tracks as it headed onto the Williamsburg Bridge.
He is one of more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young boys, who have been killed or badly injured after falling off speeding trains. Other risks include being crushed between the train and tunnel walls and being electrocuted by high-voltage subway tracks. “Subway surfing” dates back a century but it has been fueled by social media.
Think of it as evolution in action.