British daredevil teenager dies in Metro accident
Free-runner suffered fatal head injury after he was found between two trains on the Paris underground
A BRITISH free-runner has died after the teenager apparently climbed between two train coaches on the Paris Metro on New Year’s Day, French prosecutors confirmed yesterday.
Friends insist that Nye Frankie Newman, 17, from Guildford, Surrey, was not performing his daredevil stunts at the time, but Paris public transport said he suffered fatal wounds after he was seen “between two coaches”.
Mr Newman was a high-profile proponent of parkour, a risky, high-adrenalin “sport” in which people climb and jump over obstacles and buildings in urban environments. Photographs on his social media accounts show him leaping between buildings in Hong Kong and somersaulting on the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
Mr Newman was part of a 10-member group of thrill seekers called Brewman, which made headlines last month after members “surfed” the Metro and posted their exploits on the internet. French public transport threatened to press charges at the time.
In a statement, Brewman said that Mr Newman was not riding a train in the accident and “didn’t pass away due to parkour”.
A Facebook posting on Monday, by group member Luke Stones, said: “He wasn’t train surfing as many of you may assume, many of you may think it’s a joke and we really wish it was.”
The Paris public transport authority, RATP, said: “On 31 December at 11.20pm, the driver of a train in the station of Daumesnil (line 6) was called out to by a youth who said that someone in his group had a head injury and required help.”
RATP said emergency services took the injured teenager to a nearby hospital at around midnight and added: “Initial evidence provided by witnesses to RATP, and which will have to be clari- fied in the investigation, indicate the victim was between two train coaches for an unknown reason.”
Mr Newman posted a picture the day before he died that appears to have been taken from the top of a Paris bridge above the Metro line. Mr Stones described his dead friend as “an incredible human being who was always up for anything”. Nye always gave a “posi- tive outlook to any situation” and “inspired so many people through his enthusiastic lifestyle”, he said.
Fans and fellow enthusiasts paid tribute to the teenager online and the parkour group will stage a remembrance “jam” in Guildford on March 4, when more than 300 friends and fellow free-running enthusiasts plan to “get together and train for the day”.