The heartbroken mother of a teenage girl who died after tumbling off the top of a subway car last weekend said she’s so distraught she doesn’t want to live — and begged other kids not to participate in the dangerous social media stunt.
“Stop [subway] surfing — it’s not a game,” mom Maria Elena Ortiz, 31, told The Post Tuesday between wrenching sobs. “If you die, think of the pain you will cause your family. Please kids, don’t do it.
“I don’t want to live right now,” Ortiz, a cleaner from Jackson Heights, Queens, added as she spoke through a translator. “I feel so desperate. She was my baby.”
A family friend who goes by the name of Ever also said that nobody knew 13-year-old Krystel Romero was riding on top of the trains — they didn’t even think she took the subways.
“They were doing it for social media,” Ever said of Romero and her 14-year-old pal, who was critically injured when the two girls fell off a No. 7 train in Corona Sunday night.
“Social media is crazy right now. They just want likes,” Ever said. “Don’t take a risk just for TikTok likes. They think they can make money from their social media.”
Her comments echoed Mayor Eric Adams’, who spoke about Romero’s death at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday.
“I don’t know if we really understand what social media is doing to our children,” Adams said. “Social media has radicalized and hijacked our children.
“It’s unimaginable that you can ride on a subway train and 10 million people will view [it], and we show that over and over,” Hizzoner continued. “They are more impressionable at those young ages. You know, as children, you leave a karate movie and you start kicking like Bruce Lee. And that’s the same thing.”
At another, unrelated press conference, Metropolitan Transit Authority CEO Janno Lieber said the agency “has done so much to try to push back on this terrible, dangerous trend” and will “keep pushing.”
That includes “thousands and thousands” of printed and verbal messages that flash and play in the subway system, as well as asking social media companies to take down the viral clips as soon as they’re posted.
“We’re always checking every day to make sure they do take them down and that they don’t get out,” Lieber said. “It breaks New Yorkers’ hearts that kids — a lot of them are just good kids — are being injured and even, God forbid, killed by this dangerous activity.”
But it’s not clear if the campaign is working.
The depth of the problem was revealed once more when Romero became the sixth person to die subway surfing this year — a devastating tally that has already surpassed 2023’s mark of five deaths.
The teen and her friend were riding on top of a southbound 7 train when they fell between the cars and were run over at the 111th Street station around 11 p.m. Sunday, cops said.
Romero was pronounced dead at the scene right after her horrific fall, leaving her mother “really in shock,” Ever said.
“Krystel’s mom told her not to do anything like this,” he said. “I don’t know what made her take this decision … She fell on the tracks for likes on TikTok.”
Romero’s pal was in critical condition at Elmhurst Hospital on Monday — with sources telling The Post she had a fractured skull, a brain bleed and couldn’t breathe on her own.
The accident closely followed a similar one that killed 13-year-old Adolfo Sorzano, who died subway surfing last week in Queens.
“Please don’t ride [atop] the subway,” Adolfo Sanabria, his heartbroken dad, told The Post Monday as he begged other kids not to try the risky stunt. “Please think about the pain it will cause your parents.”
Lieber, of the MTA, said the city needs parents and schools to “bear down hard on kids who have shown a propensity to do this, because we’ve got to save their lives.”
“Please! Parents, teachers, other caregivers — make sure kids understand this is not a game. We need people to pull kids back when they get involved with this,” he said.
“They cannot take chances with their lives,” Lieber continued. “This is not like a video game, you don’t get another chance. You can’t just reboot. This is one chance. If you lose, if you do something stupid, you’re going to lose your life.”
Adams echoed this, saying the parents “must take part.”
“They must play a role in this partnership,” he said.
Ever, the family friend, said the same thing Tuesday.
“It’s not about taking the videos down, it’s about parents who need to tell kids, ‘If you make stupid videos, this is what could happen to you,’” he said.
“Kids, please listen to your parents,” he continued. “Think about your parents, think about your family. You could end up like this.”
— Additional reporting by Joe Marino
