In a reckless attempt to create viral content for TikTok, two teenagers now face legal consequences after a dangerous stunt resulted in a 16-year-old boy’s 50-foot fall into a shaft on the Queensboro Bridge. The victim’s family has accused his supposed friends of abandoning him at the scene.
According to an NYPD spokesperson, a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old have been apprehended following the incident that unfolded on Monday evening. The younger of the two faces charges of reckless endangerment and criminal trespassing, while the older teen is charged with criminal trespassing.
The alarming sequence of events began with a 911 call received by the police around 5:45 p.m. on the Queens side of the East River bridge. Upon arrival, officers discovered the 16-year-old from Lynbrook, Long Island trapped within the bridge shaft.
Insiders revealed to The Post that the teenager had been attempting to record a TikTok video when the tragic fall occurred. The rescue operation was massive, involving approximately 75 first responders and 10 pieces of equipment, as detailed by FDNY Deputy Chief Nicholas Corrado during a press briefing at the scene.
Sources told The Post the boy was filming a stunt to post on TikTok when he fell.
Roughly 75 first responders and 10 pieces of apparatus were needed to rescue the boy, FDNY Deputy Chief Nicholas Corrado said at a press briefing at the scene
He was rushed to New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell, where he was listed in critical but stable condition, police said.
An online petition urging for the stunt to be investigated alleged that two of the teen’s “friends” took videos of the boy, identified as “Frankie,” as he screamed their names “in agony” and sent them to people online.
“Nobody deserves to be abandoned and left to die during the worst and most traumatic moment of their life,” the Change.org petition said.
The petition, which has over 1,000 signatures, alleged that the two pals managed to take the wounded teen’s cell phone to prevent him from calling emergency services and fled the scene to their homes — leaving the boy “inside the bridge shaft suffering and dying.”
“Multiple hours later, an anonymous woman who saw the video contacted authorities,” the petition added. “The FDNY had to search each shaftway of the Queensboro Bridge until they found Frankie’s shoe and blood.”
A GoFundMe for Frankie’s recovery costs said the teen was hypothermic and lost a lot of blood during the terrifying fall, and “now faces a long road of surgeries, recovery, and rehabilitation.”
“His survival is nothing short of a miracle,” the fundraiser for his family said.
TikTok has come under attack in recent years for allowing a string of possibly dangerous stunts to be widely shared and remain on the social media platform.
