List of graffiti and street art injuries and deaths

Brussels 2018

This is a list of injuries and deaths related to the creation of graffiti and street art.

Graffiti writing may occur on "bridges, roof tops, railway property and other high and inaccessible places such as inside tube tunnels."

Data

It was reported that there were nine people who were injured or killed engaging in graffiti on railway property in New South Wales in the 18 months prior to December 2001 and by 1988 there had been six people who were killed painting train carriages in New South Wales .

Graffiti and street art injuries and deaths

Date	Location	Type	Died/ Injured	Age	Description
9 November 1987	United Kingdom – London	Collision with train	Died	11	An 11-year-old person was found dead after an accident, close to the tracks at Kilburn Park Station, preparing to create graffiti; a passing train may have caught his clothing and dragged him along the train track bed.
10 November 1988	United Kingdom – London	Electrocution	Died	16	A 16-year-old person, who went by the tag "Rase", ran away after being seen at Neasden tube depot. He fell onto a live rail, and was electrocuted and killed.
29 November 1989	United States – New York	Collision with train	Died	17, 17	Two 17 year-old people were found dead inside a subway train tunnel, with three spray paint cans. They went by the tags "Slick" and "Soni".
6 May 1994	Australia - Sydney	Collided with train	Injured	15	A 15 year-old slid out of the window of a train and began spraying the graffiti tag "oops" on the roof of the train. As they were spraying their head was collided with an object, perhaps a stanchion or signal and they were then found lying on the floor of the train and were taken to hospital. They suffered injuries including almost complete loss of the use of their left arm, some speech deficiency, impaired balance, headaches, epileptic fits and impairment of their immediate memory.
1997	United States – Seattle	Collision with train	Injured	?	A persons foot was severed while they were painting the side of a train.
11 June 1997	United States – Los Angeles	Jumped from height	Injured	19	A 19-year-old person, who went by the tag "Ozie", was injured when he jumped 100ft from the top of a concrete pylon, where he had become stranded after spraying graffiti on the side of the Skirball Center overpass above the San Diego Freeway. His injuries included a broken spine, two broken ankles and a broken left arm.
January 1999	France	Electrocuted	Died	19	A person, 19, from Chellois, was reported as having been on the top of the roof of a train carriage that they were intending to tag. They received an electric shock from the overhead power lines and were killed.
April 2001	United Kingdom	Collided with train	Died	18	An 18 year-old was spray painting graffiti beside a railway line when a train that was passing by collided with them, killing them.
March 2002	Australia - Sydney	Collided with train	Died	18	An 18 year-old was spray painting graffiti beside a railway line when a train that was passing by collided with them, killing them.
1 February 2005	Canada – Toronto	Collision with train	Died	18	An 18-year-old person, who went by the tag "Alpha", was killed when he was hit by a train. He had sprayed his tag on the outside of a freight car. He was then hit by the passing train between Dupont and Christie streets in Toronto.
21 June 2005	France – Paris	Electrocuted	Died	20	Three people, aged 20, accessed Robespierre train station at 4:30 am when trains were no longer running. They began spray painting a wagon and had been able to walk on the live third rail without receiving an electric shock. Railway workers maintaining the track nearby had turned off the electric current. The railway workers then finished work and reconnected the current to the live third rail. The three people began to leave the tunnel, one of the people dropped an object, went to pick it up, lost balance and fell on the third rail. He received an electric shock, lost consciousness and the other two people carried him to their car and took him to hospital. The person later died from their injuries.
5 January 2007	United States – New York	Collision with train	Died	13	A 13-year-old person, who went by the tag "KOS", was killed when he was hit by a train. He was with three people who had been writing tags on signal boxes, and got hit by a train.
12 January 2007	United Kingdom – London	Collision with train	Died	21, 19	Two people were killed after being hit by a train. It occurred between Barking and Upney train stations. They had been spray painting graffiti, attempted to escape after being seen and were hit by a train. They were a 21-year-old person who went by the tag "Ozone", and a nineteen-year-old who went by the tag "Wants".
	France – Paris	Electrocution	Died	21	A 21-year-old person, who went by the tag "Opea", was with a fellow tagger Deel in the Paris Metro underground. He bent down to pick up his camera which was on the train track, touched the third rail, was electrocuted by it and killed.
20 January 2008	Australia – Sydney	Drowned	Died	22, 25	A 22-year-old person, and a 25-year-old person, died after they were trapped by rising water in a stormwater drain. They were inside a stormwater tunnel painting graffiti when it began raining heavily. The rain swept them to the end of the tunnel which was about one kilometre. Bars at the end of the tunnel prevented them from being able to leave. They then subsequently drowned in the water inside the stormwater drain.
20 January 2009	Netherlands – Rotterdam	Collision with train	Died, Injured	17, 18	A metro train was performing a test drive to test points and signals at 4:45am in the morning. It was unusual for trains to travel at this time at night and it was driving in the opposite direction from which trains normally travelled. As it was passing through Slotlaan metro station it struck two people who were a few dozen meters outside the station. It was said at the time the two were likely to have been painting a wall with graffiti. Spray paint cans were found lying next to the railway line. One of the people, 17, was killed from the impact with the train while the second person, 18, was taken to Erasmus medical centre with serious injuries.
20 February 2009	United States - Miami	Fall / Collision with car	Died	28	A person was on a road bridge when they fell 24 feet to the expressway below and a passing car collided with them. A spray paint can was with them and there was fresh paint on the road sign above where they fell.
4 July 2010	United Kingdom – Liverpool	Fall	Died	22	A 22-year-old person, was killed when he fell through a skylight on the roof of a warehouse. The warehouse was between Moorfields and Sandhills railway stations. He was intending to tag the railway line on Sprainger street and had objects with him he could use to tag.
9 July 2010	Germany – Rathenow	Collision with train	Died	15, 15	Two 15 year-old people, were killed by an ICE train after they were spraying graffiti on a freight train carriage close to railway tracks. They camped in a tent near the Havel Bridge over night in a group of 10. At 7am in the morning the two people left the group, went to the bridge and began to spray a freight train that was located near the Havel Bridge. An ICE train approached the pair. The freight train had its engine running and the noise may have been a reason they did not hear the approaching ICE train. The train driver saw them and applied the emergency brakes. The ICE train reached the place on the tracks where they had been spraying. One of the two people was instantly killed from the injuries he suffered from the ICE train. The second of the two was at first taken to hospital and had an arm amputated. He then later died in intensive care. Also present with them at the bridge was a third person aged 12 who witnessed the accident and did not receive any injuries.
4 October 2010	Germany – Berlin	Collision with train	Died	31	A 31-year-old person, who went by the tag Kmer, was hit by a train and killed. It is thought that Miran was spraying graffiti on a bridge at Karower Kreuz when the collision with the train occurred. The driver of the train was unaware that any collision had occurred. His body was thrown from the bridge by the train into bushes near by. One news source reported that it had been guessed as 3 or 4 days the length of time that the body had been in the bushes, although it remained uncertain.
23 October 2010	Poland – Prabuty	Collision with train	Died	19	A 19-year-old person was on the railway tracks in Prabuty. They were there with some people who were spray painting graffiti. The 19 year-old had finished spray painting the wall of a viaduct. It is thought that he then went to paint a freight train that was slowly travelling past. An oncoming train sounded its siren. It is thought possible that they leaned out from behind a freight wagon. It has been reported that "The rush of air pulled the teenager right under the wheels of the train". The person was killed instantly from the collision.
31 October 2010	Canada – Montreal	Collision with train	Died	17, 17, 17	Three 17 year-old people were killed after being hit by a train. They were intending to spray paint graffiti under the Turcot interchange. Two cars belonging to the graffiti artists were found nearby and a red spray can was found in one of the cars. It is thought that the Viarail train was quiet as it travelled down the tracks and they did not hear it coming. After the accident it was recommendation was handed down to Transport Canada to review the practice of putting a trains headlights into standby. Two other people who were with them at the time were uninjured. Two of the people went by the tags "Jays" and "Aber".
26 May 2011	United States – New York City	Collision with train	Died	20	A 20-year-old person was walking on train tracks when they were hit and killed by a train. The train operator saw the person walking on the tracks and was unable to stop the train in time. His body was found inside a tunnel and cans of spray paint were nearby.
29 August 2011	Australia – Adelaide	Fall	Died	17	A 17-year-old person, was killed after a fall. He fell 15 metres from a bridge in Morphet Vale, Adelaide. It is understood they had been attempting to spray paint the side of the bridge. A backpack near the body was found with spray cans inside of it.
11 January 2012	Australia – Sydney	Collision with train	Died	18	An 18-year-old person, who went by the tag "Ontre", was on the train tracks with two other people near Lewisham train station. They were intending to spray a wall that had recently been painted and were walking through a tunnel that went through a road bridge when the 18 yea-old was hit by a train. One of the people who was there that night with the 18 year-old described the approach of the train as something that they had been unable to hear until they saw it.The fatal injuries from the collision where described as having cut the 18 year-olds body "in half".
March 2013	United States – Sacramento	Fall	Died	22	A 22-year-old person, was spray painting graffiti on a bridge overpass that had a 30 to 40 feet drop below it. They fell from the bridge and there body was later found near by. There was recently added red graffiti on the bridge near where his body was as well as similar paint on his hands. They went by the tags "nose" and "bape". Further indications that the person was engaged in the practice of creating graffiti include convictions that they had received in 2009 and 2011 in the Sacramento and Roseville areas.
1 April 2013	United States – Sacramento	Undetermined	Died	30	A 30-year-old person, was killed from what was thought to be asphyxiation after the rope that they were using to move down the outside of a high rise building wound tightly around their chest and suffocated them. The person's knees were up around their chest inside of the rope in a technique called a "body belay". Their body was found still on the rope at the 17th floor of the office building. They were not wearing any climbing equipment. Spray paint cans and etching tools were found on the roof of the building.
7 July 2013	United Kingdom – Birmingham	Fall	Died	16	A 16-year-old person, who went by the tag "Tame", died after he fell from a three-storey building in Digbeth, Birmingham. They were graffiting at the time that they fell.
October 2013	Germany – Hamburg	Collision with train	Died	25	A 25-year-old person, was with some companions in Hamburg writing graffiti on a wall when he was hit by a passing train. Their injuries included multiple fracture to his spine and head injuries.
25 December 2013	Germany – Berlin	Electrocution	Died	15	A 15-year-old person, climbed onto a freight carriage in a freight yard in Prenzlauer Berg. Three other people who were with him heard a loud bang and a flash of light. The 15 year-old received an electric shock from overhead power lines and was killed. To bring further meaning as to what happened that night, the Berlin Zeitung quotes an investigator as saying "Apparently, in order to check the situation in the S-Bahn sweeping system, the 15-year-old climbed onto a parked car,". MAZ Online gives a report that expands further along the relation between climbing up onto the freight car and the neighbouring S-Bahn train yard; "The death of a 15-year-old at a Berlin freight station may have been an accident in the sprayer scene." As the Berliner Zeitung reports, referring to the investigators, the young people probably wanted to explore the area on Storkower Allee in order to spray graffiti on the S-Bahn trains parked there. A police spokesman did not want to confirm this suspicion, referring to the ongoing investigation.
17 March 2014	France – Paris	Collision with tunnel	Died	20	A person, 20 was killed when they leaned out of a train window to spray graffiti on the outside of the train. As the train entered a tunnel they were hit by the entrance to the tunnel. Next to where the person was found was a bag containing spray paint cans.
25 May 2014	Greece – Athens	Electrocuted	Died	17	A person, 17, was at Eirini station with two other people wanting to graffiti trains. They made their way past a barbed wire fence when the 17 year-old slipped, fell onto a live third rail, was electrocuted and killed.
2 July 2014	United States – New York	Electrocution	Died	42	A 42-year-old person, who went by the tag "DG", died when he was electrocuted by the live third rail. He was found dead and alone, lying on the train tracks. Reports are uncertain as to what Jason's intentions where for being in the train tunnel. Sources reported that he had been heading back to where he lived in Queens, New York, and that it was possible he may have been tagging or intending to tag the tunnel.
2014	Germany – Hamburg	Electrocuted by arc	Injured	21	In autumn 2014, Julius Gerhardt, 21, was with some people spraying freight carriages. Gerhardt climbed on top of a freight car and was intending to tag a bridge. He was holding a spray can in his right hand. An electric arc jumped over to the spray can and went through his hand, arm, chest, then exited out his right foot. Gerhardt lost consciousness and was then lifted up by the people with him and carried to a street. He was in a coma in hospital for 36 hours and then later he was put into a medically induced coma for a week. Treatment for his injuries included 10 skin graft operations that occurred over a period of 3 months.
25 September 2014	Germany – Hamburg	Collision with train	Died	64	Walter Josef Fischer, 64, who went by the tag "Oz", was on the train tracks in between Hamburg Hauptbahnhof and Berliner Tor train stations. He was hit by a passing S-Bahn train. The cover of a power cable had newly sprayed graffiti on it. His backpack contained spray cans inside it. h
25 September 2014	Australia – Brisbane	Fall	Died	34	A 34-year-old person was killed after falling from a train, after spraying graffiti on it.
1 November 2014	Australia – Brisbane	Electrocution	Died	26	A 26-year-old person was spraying graffiti on train carriages at a train depot. A 19-year-old person was with him acting as a lookout. He climbed onto one of the carriages, raised his hand, was electrocuted by overhead electrical wires and killed.
23 March 2015	Ukraine - Kiev	Electrocuted	Died	15	A person was painting train carriages when they climbed onto the roof for a photo, they then received an electric shock and were killed.
7 December 2015	Portugal – Porto	Collision with train	Died	18, 20, ?	Five people were at Águas Santas train station in Porto. When one of them barred the doors to the train to stop the train moving away, a passing train going 120km/h hit three of the five people, killing them.
20 May 2016	Germany – Mönchengladbach	Collision with train	Died	29	A 29-year-old person was spraying graffiti on technical equipment near the train tracks when a freight train passed them. The force from the suction of the freight train threw them against the side of the train, killing them instantly.
3 October 2016	Germany – Berlin	Collision with train	Died	18,19	Two people, aged 18 and 19, were hit by a train and killed; a bag with spray utensils and spray paint cans were found nearby.
29 May 2017	Australia – Sydney	Collision with train	Died	25	A 25-year-old person was thought to be spraying graffiti on a stationary train, then ran across the tracks and were hit by a train. Items such as graffiti spray cans and coverings for the face were found nearby.
30 August 2017	Greece – Athens	Electrocution	Died	19	A person, who went by the tag Cofre, was with two other people at Thiseio metro station where they wrote their tag on a train carriage. They were talking on the phone and then tripped over onto a live rail that electrocuted them. Ambulance medics took them to hospital where they were pronounced dead.
2018	Spain – Barcelona	Fall	Injured	?	A news report described a person in a way that connected them to the practice of graffiti writing. It recounted how this person attempted to go down a vent hole that would have given them access to railway property. The person fell 6 metres down the vent hole resulting in them going into a coma and continuing to suffer from their injuries a year following the fall.
2 January 2018	France – Chelles	Electrocuted	Injured	21	It was reported that a person, 21, went with another person into a train marshalling yard probably to write a graffiti tag on a freight carriage that was located in the yard. The 21 year-old climbed onto a freight carriage and received an electric shock from the overhead power lines. The person who was with them contacted emergency services and they were transported to a hospital that specializes in treating burns patients where they remained in a critical condition.
18 June 2018	United Kingdom – London	Collision with train	Died	19, 23, 23	Three people were killed when they were hit by a train between Brixton and Denmark Hill train stations. It is thought they saw an oncoming train and then hid behind a wall so that they would be hidden from sight. In doing this they put themselves in the path of the train. Spray paint cans were in close proximity to where their bodies were found. Two were aged 23 and the third was 19. They went by the tags "Trip", "Kbag" and "Lover".
4 December 2018	United Kingdom – Glasgow	Electrocution	Died	29	A 29-year-old person, who went by the tag "Mode", was killed by what was thought to be electrocution. Police and ambulance services were called to the location where they was lying on the tracks near Dumbreck station in Glasgow at around 1am and they was pronounced dead at the scene. A 29-year-old person who was with him at the time was initially arrested for trespass and vandalism and then later released without any charges against them being pursued.
11 May 2019	Spain – Valencia	Collision with car	Died	14	A 14-year-old person, who went by the tag "Koner", was with a group of people on the side of a highway in Valencia. They had just painted ACM the name of their crew, on the side of the highway. The people with the 14 year-old traveled across the highway. The 14 year-old, holding a roller brush and paint can, then traveled across two lanes of the highway and was hit by an oncoming car. The 14 year-old had appeared on the highway unexpectedly in front of the travelling car.
15 November 2019	United States – San Diego	Fall	Died	28	A 28-year-old person, had been attempting to spray paint graffiti on a building when they fell through a metal awning and were subsequently killed.

Gallery

• 

  Melbourne 2020

See also

Other articles of the topic Lists : List of Mensans, List of musicians, List of most popular websites
Some use of "" in your query was not closed by a matching "".Some use of "" in your query was not closed by a matching "".

• Graffiti
• List of selfie-related injuries and deaths
• List of train surfing injuries and deaths
• Rooftopping
• Street art
• Urban Exploration

References

This article "List of graffiti and street art injuries and deaths" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:List of graffiti and street art injuries and deaths. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

This page exists already on Wikipedia.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans
• Graffiti
• Community Health Officer
• List of accidental electric shocks on railways in Romania
• List of erotic and sex workers with unnatural death
• List of train surfing injuries and deaths
• List of selfie-related injuries and deaths

---