Two teenage girls who died after going subway surfing across the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City have been identified.
Zemfira Mukhtarov, 12, and Ebba Morina, 13, of Manhattan, were found dead on top of a J train in Brooklyn on Saturday.
The two teen girls were discovered on top of the last car of the train after it entered the Marcy Avenue station around 3.10am.
Subway surfing is when people climb on top of train cars and ride them at high, dangerous speeds as they pull into stations.
The girls were a part of a group of roughly 15 teens who were running around the train before being found on the roof.
A GoFundMe started by Ruslan Mukhtarov, Zemfira’s father, said his daughter would have turned 13 in two weeks.
He wrote: ‘No parent should ever have to face the pain of losing a child, and no child should lose their life in such a tragic way.
‘We are struggling to process this immense grief, and we are turning to our community for help to give Zemfira the respectful and loving farewell she deserves.’
Zemfira Mukhtarov, 12, was found dead on top of a J train in Brooklyn
Her body was discovered on top of the last car of the train after it entered the Marcy Avenue stop around 3.10am
Mukhtarov described what happened as a ‘devastating accident at a subway station.’
The family is hoping to raise $18,000 to ‘honor Zemfira’s memory and lay her to rest with the dignity she deserves.’
Her mother Nataliya Rudenko explained to FOX 5 New York that she was preparing breakfast and watching the news when her 11-year-old daughter noticed a skateboard and a purse in the footage.
Rudenko said: ‘She was supposed to be asleep in her room.
‘Now we’re planning her funeral.’
Her daughter was ‘fearless’ and had been ‘on top of the bridges, on top of the roofs.’
The 12-year-old had met the other girl online and had ‘snuck out’ of her Bay Ridge home.
A public tribute wall for Morina described her as a ‘smart, beautiful and ambitious child.’
The girls were a part of a group of roughly 15 teenagers who were running around the train. Zemfira is pictured right
A GoFundMe started by Ruslan Mukhtarov, Zemfira’s father, said his daughter (left) turned 13 in two weeks
New York City transit president Demetrius Crichlow stated in a message obtained by the New York Post: ‘It’s heartbreaking that two young girls are gone because they somehow thought riding outside a subway train was an acceptable game.’
‘Parents, teachers, and friends need to be clear with loved ones: getting on top of a subway car isn’t ‘surfing’— it’s suicide.
‘I’m thinking of both the grieving families and the transit workers who discovered these children, all of whom have been horribly shaken by this tragedy.’
Witnesses said police were talking with three teen boys at the subway station and drove away with two of them in a police car.
Emergency responders were also spotted carrying a plastic bag and a police car out of the station, although it was unclear who the items belonged to.
The two girls’ deaths were the latest in a string of subway surfing tragedies that have plagued New York City.
Five people have now been killed subway surfing in the city this year.
In 2024, six people died performing the dangerous social media trend. All of them were between 11 and 15 years old.
That January, Alam Reyes, 14, fell off a train in Brooklyn and died at the scene.
His half-brother said he ditched school that day and went subway surfing with a friend
In 2023, five people died – the equivalent to the total number of deaths between 2018 and 2022.
That included Zackery Nazario, who died while subway surfing on a Brooklyn-bound J train over the Williamsburg Bridge that February.
Alam Reyes (left) and Zackery Nazario (right) both died because of subway surfing
Subway surfing has already killed five people in 2025 (file image)
A low beam hit the teen boy in the head, causing him to fall between the subway cars. A train ran over him before he could get away.
His mother Norma subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, and Meta, alleging that the apps ‘goaded’ her child into the deadly stunt by recommending similar videos.
The case went to discovery this June. The claims against the MTA were dismissed.
New York Police Department data shared with the Daily Mail indicated that more than 415 people had been arrested for subway surfing between January 2023 and April 2025.
The MTA has played ‘Ride inside, stay alive’ public service announcements over the subway speakers since 2023.
The New York City government said it was working with Google to ‘help spread the messaging’ about subway surfing on YouTube.
That year, the NYPD also launched a drone program that provides ‘live aerial surveillance’ in order to ‘help officers intervene before a stunt becomes fatal.’
New York City mayor Eric Adams and NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch said this July that the program had been responsible for 200 subway surfing rescues.
Despite the recent focus and rising deaths, the trend has been traced back to the 1980s.
One of the earliest subway surfing deaths goes back as far as 1938 when Donald Munoz, 11, fell off the top of a Brooklyn train after it clipped an overpass.
