NEW YORK — An 11-year-old boy died Monday after subway surfing in New York City. He’s the fourth person to die from subway surfing in the city this year.
Cayden Thompson was riding on top of a G train when he hit his head on a metal overhang by the Fourth Avenue station and died.
His family spoke exclusively to CBS News New York’s Ali Bauman about their regret and warnings for other kids.
“Never doing that stuff again”
At 15 years old, Christian Vega is grief-stricken and plagued by guilt.
“I can’t really put it into words. He was literally always looking up to me,” Christian said.
Christian is Cayden’s uncle, but said they were more like brothers.
“He’s been looking at videos online and playing Roblox. They have Roblox games you can subway surf and stuff,” Christian said.
Christian admits he also made subway surfing videos, which he believes may have influenced Cayden.
“Same way he got hooked on it, I got hooked on it. I’d seen videos online, decided to do it,” Christian said. “It’s really easy to get hooked onto that stuff because once you do it, nothing ever’s gonna top it off, like that adrenaline rush you get.”
Worried that Cayden may have followed his lead, Christian hopes now to set a new example for his peers.
“I’m never going into tunnels, never train surfing, never doing that stuff again,” Christian said.
He added, “Other kids who are thinking of going into subway surfing and other kids who still do, just stop doing it. It’s not worth your life.”
Subway surfing incidents up across NYC, NYPD data shows
NYPD data shows subway surfing incidents are up citywide so far this year – 173 this year, compared to 104 last year.
The MTA has been running public service announcements online and in stations against the deadly trend. The MTA said in working with social media companies over the past year, they’ve gotten more than 10,000 videos taken offline for glorifying subway surfing.
In a statement a spokesman for the gaming site Roblox said, “This is a tragic situation and our heart goes out to the family. We work tirelessly to create a safe and civil platform. We have policies against content or behavior that explicitly encourages real-world activities that may create an extreme risk of physical harm.”
The subway surfing game does not violate their policies, according to the company.
