Two Pennsylvania teens are now facing criminal charges after participating in dangerous social media stunts with their cars that left one teenager dead and another young woman permanently injured.
Northampton County District Attorney Stephen Baratta announced the charges on Tuesday, September 23, and issued a warning that these online challenges are far from harmless. He described them as “the dangerous and reckless use of vehicles for these stunt challenges,” stressing that what may seem like playful dares on TikTok or Instagram can lead to real and devastating tragedy.
“It’s important for the public to understand that these challenges can have severe, real-world consequences, creating significant risk to participants and sometimes the bystanders as well,” Baratta said.
The first case happened in June in the parking lot of Freedom High School. Prosecutors say a 17-year-old boy tied an upside-down folding table to the back of his vehicle and pulled it across the lot while another 17-year-old boy rode on top, as reported by PEOPLE.
According to Baratta, the driver “recklessly operated his vehicle at significant speed such that it whipped the rider sitting on the table into another parked vehicle,” killing him instantly, leading to involuntary manslaughter charges against the driver.
The victim was not formally identified by officials, but local station WXTF mentioned him as David Nagy. Baratta explained that while the victim might have agreed to participate, it did not excuse the actions of the driver.
“They were not planning to injure their victim,” he said. “However, in both incidents, the action of these drivers were so grossly negligent and reckless that it constituted criminal, culpable state of mind.”
The second case took place in March near William Penn Highway. In this incident, prosecutors allege that a 19-year-old woman drove a car through a parking lot while her 20-year-old female friend stood on the trunk to “car surf.” The risk quickly proved catastrophic.
“Unfortunately, the friend was thrown from the moving vehicle and received catastrophic head injuries that will be permanent in nature,” Baratta said during the press conference. The 19-year-old driver has been charged with aggravated assault, aggravated assault by vehicle, careless driving, and allowing persons to hang on a vehicle.
Baratta explained that while both teens face serious consequences, it is also true that they did not act out of malicious intent. “Officials have determined that neither of the drivers had criminogenic thinking,” he said. Instead, prosecutors believe the teens acted recklessly without fully considering how dangerous their stunts were.
To balance accountability with fairness, Baratta promised the victims’ families that the defendants would face legal consequences while retaining the chance to move forward later in life.
“I promised these families that in return for the admission by these drivers that they engaged in this criminally reckless behavior, there will be public accountability and that after a successful completion of a period of supervision, these defendants will have the opportunity to ask that their criminal charges be expunged,” Baratta said. He confirmed that both defendants are first-time offenders. Therefore, he does not expect that either case will require a trial.
TikTok weighed in after news of the charges, affirming that it actively removes harmful content tied to dangerous trends. A spokesperson for the company told PEOPLE that “content that promotes dangerous behavior which may lead to serious injury is removed from the platform.”
The spokesperson also said that TikTok works to stop such videos from resurfacing. “To further discourage such content from being posted or replicated, we redirect related searches such as ‘table surfing’ to our resources support page for online challenges,” the statement read.
Between January and March, TikTok reported that 99.8% of videos removed for violating its dangerous activities and challenges policy were taken down proactively, with 92.4% eliminated before receiving any views.
These unfortunate accidents show how harmful social media can be if not used with caution. Teens put themselves in danger while trying to follow these trends without having any idea of the larger consequences, leading to such unfortunate outcomes.
