SOMBER NEWS
NO, PLANE SURFING IS NOT A SPORT
12/26/2024 - A dead body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines flight that traveled from Chicago to Hawaii. Train surfing and crane surfing are sanctioned sports, but not plane surfing. Please do not engage in plane surfing.
HIGH-VOLTAGE SUBSTATION URBEX?
VIDEO - Nope. A girl with some mental issues decided to climb onto a high-voltage substation transformer in Utah. Authorities had to shut off power to 800 homes to save her from electrocution.
DARKFOOT STEPS INTO TROUBLE
YouTuber DarkFoot tried a pipe climb that was bit too ambitious. Unable to pull himself up to the roof, he began his descent back down. Something went wrong and it looked like he fell from about a full 2 floors, apparently breaking his ankle. DarkFoot and his crew were forced to call for help. Unfortunately, the fire department paramedics were also accompanied by the cops.
BRITISH DAREDEVIL DIES IN SPAIN
10/13/2024 - UPDATED - Lewis Stevenson, a 26 year-old British adventurer has died after falling from the 630ft Castilla-La Mancha bridge in Talavera de la Reina, Spain, shortly after 7 AM on Sunday October, 13, 2024. He was accompanied by an unnamed 24-year old compatriot. Shortly before falling, Stevenson told his friend that he wasn't feeling well. His friend then asked if he wanted to climb back down the bridge. Stevenson responded by saying "Give me a minute". Shortly thereafter, he fell. His friend believes that that Stevenson became light-headed and fainted. He also suspects that he may not have eated any breakfast. Couple an empty stomach with the stress of a morning climb, and you can have a dangerous situation. It has been reported that he was about 40 to 50 meters up (or about a quarter the way) when he fell.
For the first two days, authorities did not release the name of the fallen daredevil. We tried to guess who the Brit might be. Based on his reported age (26) it could not have been any of the usual British YouTubers that we could think of (Ally Law, Usamalama, The Nuisance).
It is unclear how Stevenson attempted to go up the bridge. Was it by laying down on one cable and pulling himself up bit by bit (similar to this Storror challenge)? Or did he employ a high/low technique, standing on one lower cable while holding to a higher cable? Either way, this is beyond sketchy. Not as 'easy' as, for example, crawling up the North Bridge in Kyiv (as climbed by James Kingston, Shiey, Bad Cat, Urban Odyssey, and many others).
It's time to consider all that can go wrong when precariously climbing a suspension bridge, climbing the side of a building, climbing out on a crane, etc. You could be attacked by bees or hornets, attacked by a bird (this happened to Dancer), struck by lightning, experience a serious health emergency (such as a panic attack, fainting, seizure, etc), or a more mundane health issue (light-headed due to dehydration, not enough to eat, not enough sleep, get a cramp, muscle fatigue, etc) that becomes life-threatening given the perilous situation you are in. Furthermore, how do you practice for climbing this bridge, in particular the duration of the climb? You really can't. Bridges are usually one-of-a-kind obstacles. Is there a parkour gym that tries to replicate this type of climb?
BELOW: Even Alex Honnold had his mentally challenging moment on Thank God Ledge.
Finally, to anyone thinking about doing these types of really dangerous stunts for socia media fame, you have other options. Consider that things like security escapes are more entertaining. Freight train surfing is less dangerous, but that culture has a large audience. You don't have to take the really big risks to make your mark.
Also ask yourself, if I wasn't capturing video footage of this climb, would I still do this? If the answer is no, then you need to read our article about "ATTENTION NYC KIDS: LEAVE SUBWAY SURFING TO THE PROS!" Your hard work and 50 to 100 videos is likely to gain you only about 10,000 to 20,000 followers. YouTube is no longer kind to indie creators.
In closing, we remember and salute Lewis Stevenson. #RIP #ForeverYoung
UPDATE: About a month after this tragedy, urbexploreur and friends climbed this bridge. They were arrested. Apparently, the bridge is visible from the local police station.
ABOVE: Image from Urbexploreur's video versus Google maps view.
ATTENTION NYC KIDS: LEAVE SUBWAY SURFING TO THE PROS!
Above: POV of DyingLlama as he and a friend, both professionals, do their NY subway surfing.
9/18/2024 - In New York City there have been 3 subway surfing deaths involving minors in 2024. In 2023 there were 5 NYC subway surfing deaths. Riding trains, especially high-speed trains, is dangerous and should always be left to the trained professionals, like DyingLlama, Usamalama, Poison, Shiey, Dancer, etc.
The first advice for aspiring train surfers is to not even think about trying it. You're not going to become a YouTube star. The days of indie content creators quickly gaining even 100,000 followers are long gone. YouTube shadow bans indie creators. Indie creators like Shiey and Ally Law rapidly gained their followers years ago, before YouTube began snuffing Urbexers. After starting up a new channel, Dancer has mustered up only 13,400 subscribers after 1 year and 67 videos.
Furthermore, authorities in New York have vowed to work with social media to take down New York subway surfing videos.
If you're some youngster in your teens who is still hell-bent on trying this, then understand that you need to train for years at the climbing gym, work on body control by training parkour and gymnastics, then study trains and the obstacles that you will face along their paths, and practice on parked trains. Finally, after all of this, one should ride slow-moving freight trains before graduating to subway surfing. Do at your own risk. Again, we do not encourage train surfing of any kind.