00:00Kids around the country are breaking into abandoned hospitals, psychiatric wards, and jails
00:04in a new urban exploring trend that is taking over the internet. I spoke to local New York
00:10City kids who told me that urbexing is becoming a completely mainstream pastime with kids breaking
00:15into abandoned subway stations and subway cars just for the kicks. One urban explorer told me
00:20that he gets this feeling that he's so free and nobody's going to stop him when he's in
00:25abandoned spaces. Quote, it's a weird feeling when you're in a building that no one cares about and
00:29nobody goes into. It triggers this thing in your brain where you're like, holy, I could do anything.
00:34And honestly, the photos that they get and the way that history is basically frozen in time in some
00:39of these spaces is understandably thrilling. But accessing spaces that are not open to the public
00:46and have not been adequately maintained can be hugely risky. Every one of the urban explorers
00:51that I spoke to had either personally experienced or witnessed somebody get injured, whether it's
00:57through stairways collapsing or floors collapsing and people falling through. I spoke to families
01:02who have experienced tragedy as a result of urban exploring as well, including the family
01:06of Trayvon Anderson, who fell 12 feet from a ladder when he was climbing out of a sewage drain
01:12and died of head injuries on the scene. Another family, that of Rebecca Bunting, told me that
01:18their daughter was in a storm drain exploring and taking photographs and ended up drowning when there
01:24was a flash flood. One of the themes that really stuck out to me here is that this is not
01:28a new
01:29pastime. Prior generations have done similar things, but all of a sudden it's blowing up in part because
01:33of social media, but also because young people struggle to find actual spaces open to them.
01:38The cost of living has become so expensive and also places just like malls where people would
01:44stroll around are more and more a thing of the past. So while this is obviously a dangerous trend,
01:49I think it is also a symptom of the fact that young people are trying to actually get outside
01:53to explore the world and to feel some real life thrills.
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