February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Patrick Markey
Two men from Northern Ireland were badly injured on Monday night after they tried to "body surf" on the roof of a subway train as it speed through an underground tunnel in Queens, police and hospital officials said.
Lawrence Mackey, who is 22 and lives in Woodside, Queens, and 21-year-old Sean Curran, who told police he was visiting from Belfast, were traveling from Manhattan back to Queens when they were knocked off the roof of an E train, according to a police spokesperson and a transit division detective familiar with the accident.
"They are very lucky to be alive. You’ve got a lot of beams and wires hanging down in the tunnels," the detective said.
Both men were taken to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens after the incident. On Tuesday afternoon, Mackey was still in critical condition and undergoing surgery for serious trauma to his body, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Curran was expected to be released from the hospital on Tuesday, the hospital official said.
Police said Mackey and Curran had been drinking with friends in a Manhattan bar before the incident and, just after 10 p.m., boarded the E train and headed into Queens.
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Between the 54th Avenue and 74th Street stations near Jackson Heights, the two men climbed on to the subway train, yelling and shouting, as they attempted to ride atop the train, the transit detective said.
When the train passed through a tunnel, Mackey and Curran were struck by an unknown object. Mackey was thrown off the train onto the tracks. Curran fell between two subway cars and was helped inside by another passenger, police said.
It is the second subway-train-surfing accident in two months. In late January, two Brooklyn teenagers were found dead on the tracks of the N subway line near a Bensonhurst station, apparently after they had tried to surf on top of the train.