UES Teen Was One of Victims in Subway Surfing Death

Two teens were killed in a subway-surfing incident after climbing atop a Brooklyn-bound J train on Oct. 4, and one of them was a resident of the Upper East Side.

Police identified Ebba Morina, 13, of Manhattan as one of the two victims discovered atop the train when it stopped at the Marcy Ave./Broadway station after it had crossed the Williamsburg Bridge.

The other victim was identified as her friend, Zemfira Mukhtarov, who was just two weeks shy of her 13th birthday. The two were apparently struck by a low-hanging beam on the bridge.

The Morina family requested that trees be planted in memory of Ebba, and as of Oct. 13, 18 trees had been pledged to be planted in her memory, according to the Farenga Funeral Home in the Bronx.

Condolences poured in from friends and total strangers from around the world.

“Ebba, I didn’t know you, and I live on the other side of the world, but that doesn’t take away the face that the news of your tragic accident didn’t have a devastating impact on me,” wrote a poster, Jennifer Crane. “My sincerest condolences to Ebba’s family. May she rest in peace.”

Wrote Nuala Leong: “Dear Ebba, I met you once at a birthday. You stood out as a really amazing kid. Our hearts are broken. A beautiful person gone too soon. Keep watch over your family from above.”

Mukhtarov was from Brooklyn and had posted daredevil videos regularly on TikTok, including riding atop subway cars. A GoFundMe started by the family to pay for funeral and memorial expenses had raised $27,290 toward its goal of $28,000

Both girls were discovered lifeless and unresponsive atop the subway car by subway workers.

“With heavy hearts, we are reaching out for support after the tragic loss of my beloved daughter, Zemfira, who passed away in a devastating accident at a subway station,” wrote Zemfira’s father, Ruslan Mukhtarov on the GoFundMe page.

“She was 12 and she had to have her [13th birthday] in just 2 weeks, full of life, and taken from us far too soon in a heartbreaking incident that we believe was a subway surfing accident,” 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,” wrote Zemfira’s father continued. “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.”

Services for Morina were held at the Farenga Funeral Home in the Bronx on Oct. 7; the funeral was private.

Their deaths bring to five the number of people killed in subway surfing incidents so far this year. There were six deaths all of last year. The daredevil subway surfing trend appears to have taken off among teens in the past several years.

There were only five such deaths reported in the 2018-2023 time period.

The MTA has been running public service ads for the past two years, warning about the dangers of subway surfing. And for the past two years, the NYPD has been using drones to catch subway surfers. Police said they stopped 229 from subway surfing last year, compared with only 135 the previous year.

“It’s heartbreaking that two young girls are gone because they somehow thought riding outside a subway train was an acceptable game,” NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said in a statement.

“Parents, teachers, and friends need to be clear with loved ones: Getting on top of a subway car isn’t ‘surfing’—it’s suicide,” he continued. “I’m thinking of both the grieving families, and transit workers who discovered these children, all of whom have been horribly shaken by this tragedy.”