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Study links ADHD to NYC’s deadly subway surfing trend
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
and
Stephen Nessen
Published Nov 10, 2026 at 3:14 p.m. ET
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Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
and
Stephen Nessen
Published Nov 10, 2026 at 3:14 p.m. ET
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People killed “surfing” on top of New York City subway trains tend to be teen boys diagnosed with ADHD, according to a new study published this week.
The trend of young people subway surfing has persisted in recent years, despite at least 12 people being killed riding on the outside of trains since the start of 2024.
The study, which was conducted by researchers from NYU-Langone and the city hospital system, analyzed records of 43 patients under the age of 21 who were taken to Bellevue Hospital between 2018 and 2025 with some form of subway-related trauma.
The research, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, is the first of its kind that looks into subway surfing in the United States. The study identified 10 patients who were injured from subway surfing. All of those surfers were male teenagers who had “markedly higher rates of ADHD” compared to the rest of the group.
“The most striking finding in our series is the overrepresentation of ADHD; 60% of surfers carried the diagnosis versus 6.1% of nonsurfers,” the study said. “This association has not been previously described in the train surfing literature and is among the most notable findings of our study.”
Researchers behind the study acknowledged the sample size is too small to make a sweeping generalization of all young people in New York City who ride on top of trains. The analysis doesn’t include two young girls, 12-year-old Zemfira Mukhtarov and 13-year-old Ebba Morina, who died while riding on top of a J train in Williamsburg in Oct. 2025.
Eveline Teresa Hidalgo, senior author of the study and pediatric neurosurgeon at NYU and Bellevue, said the subway surfers diagnosed with ADHD had also been treated for the disorder.
“We don't know what this means exactly, and it's not that ADHD causes them to subway surf, but it means that it's something that we need to investigate further,” said Hidalgo. ”It could be associated with some attention-seeking behavior. It could be associated with the thrill-seeking behavior, and it's a typical teenage behavior.”
Hidalgo said the study shows how subway surfing can cause life-altering injuries among people who don’t die after falling from trains. Some patients they studied at Bellevue suffered injuries to their brains and spine, and some had their limbs amputated.
Both the MTA and NYPD have attempted to prevent subway surfing in recent years.
The transit agency has teamed up with city officials to lobby social media giants like Meta and TikTok to ban or censor videos of teens subway surfing in New York City. The MTA has also piloted installing barriers between subway cars on the 7 line — where subway surfing is prevalent as the line is mostly elevated — to prevent people climbing on top of cars. The NYPD has also deployed drones to monitor elevated train tracks to spot and catch surfers.
NYPD data shows 185 people have been arrested for subway surfing so far this year, a 12% increase compared to the same period last year.
The study compared New York City’s subway surfing wave to a similar trend in Berlin in the 1990s. After 18 people died subway surfing over a six-year period in the German capital, the city’s S-Bahn transit system slowly decommissioned a fleet of train cars after finding they were easier for riders to climb.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
transportation
Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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