Imagine this: you’re on honeymoon in Florida with your now-wife, and you have a few hours
left before it’s time to return to the airport.
The sun is shining and the ocean is a magnificent bright blue; you can’t resist one last dip
in the water before you head home.
Besides, none of the photos you’ve taken so far have quite been profile picture standard.
So, in you get, with your GoPro at the ready.
You swim out into the water far enough for nobody else to be in shot, you hold your breath,
and you dive down to take the perfect underwater selfie.
But little do you realize that a great white shark has just spotted you and is swimming
your way right that moment You press the shutter and the photo is taken just as the shark is
opening its mouth to gobble you up, your last moments on earth captured by a haunting selfie.
The photo is uploaded to Facebook automatically.
Sounds unbelievable, right?
Well, that’s because it is.
The truth is that Fall Out Boy star Pete Wentz photoshopped a joke photo of him with a shark
behind, but a few online media outlets created a fake story using the photo, which ended
up going viral.
Humans, eh – there’s something strangely sadistic about our propensity to laugh at
the misery and stupidity of others.
I for one would never try to gain money and clout by capitalizing on that at the expense
of innocent people.
Ever.
But anyway, what was I saying?
Time to laugh at some people who died by taking selfies while they were hanging off buildings,
flying planes, and holding guns!
It might not be true that an innocent honeymooner was killed by a shark whilst taking a selfie,
and there’s a good reason for that.
It would be pretty difficult logistically to not notice the shark coming, and everyone
knows we’re supposed to fear sharks.
Nobody in their right mind would want to take a selfie with one.
But what about a more innocent-seeming animal that nobody would suspect?
Like a penguin, a sloth – or a walrus.
In a Chinese wildlife park, a tourist once tried to take a picture with a walrus but
had a nasty surprise.
The animal’s enclosure turned out to be not very well enclosed, and the 1.5-ton walrus
grabbed the man from behind and pulled him into the water to play.
Presumably, there was some kind of misunderstanding and the walrus mistook the selfie pose for
a ‘want to go swimming together?’
pose.
Easy mistake to make.
In the walrus’s eyes, he was playfully submerging the man and swimming around him.
In reality, he was drowning the man and keeping him trapped in the water.
A zookeeper tried to enter the water to save the man but ended up in the same predicament,
and eventually, the two of them drowned.
He’s not the only one to have underestimated the strength of wild animals, an important
fact that seems to have been forgotten in modern times.
In Pamplona, the home of the ancient Spanish tradition of bull runs, a man thought it would
be a great idea to take a selfie with two bulls about to collide with each other in
the background.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see a third bull running toward him…
The third bull pierced the neck of the selfie-taker with its horn – spectators noted he remained
suspended in the air like a puppet.
The man was one of many to die from taking part in the controversial bull-running tradition,
but he was the first to meet his demise by taking a photo.
Of course, it’s not just animals that are putting people at risk.
We can do that all by ourselves, thank you very much.
For example, a Romanian teenager once tried to lie down on the roof of a train car to
take an iconic selfie, but it didn’t quite go to plan.
As luck would have it, just as she lifted up one of her legs to pose, the leg hit a
live wire overhead, resulting in a massive electric shock.
An electric fence used to keep horses fenced normally gives out a shock of around 2,000
volts – strong, but not enough to cause much damage to a human.
Well, this wire gave out shocks of 27,000 volts.
The girl didn’t just get a nasty shock, she literally burst into flames and died of
her burns.
Thinking they’d be safe if they just stayed on the ground, a group of young guys died
trying to attempt the so-called dare devil selfie, which involves posing on the railway
as a train approaches then jumping out the way just in the nick of time.
Except they didn’t get the timing quite right and ended up getting run over.
If that sounds like the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard, then you clearly haven’t heard
about the rest of the incidents in this video.
Well, trains are one thing, they don’t seem that dangerous.
Surely nobody would be stupid enough to try to take a selfie whilst in a plane?
Wrong.
One amateur pilot lost control of his plane one day whilst flying over Colorado, and his
penchant for mid-flight selfies is believed to be the cause.
Although the accident itself wasn’t recorded, the GoPro camera he used was found the next
day, with photos taken at dangerous points in the air featuring both the pilot and his
passenger.
The flash used for the camera probably disoriented the guy so much that he lost control of the
plane, because no other reason for the crash could be found.
This crazy pilot isn’t the only one who seems to have a screw loose.
My legs turn to jelly when I climb up a ladder to clean my windows, but one Chinese ex-stuntman
made a habit of ascending high buildings and hanging off ledges to bring in some extra
income.
His photos soon went viral, including one of him hanging off the Great Wall of China
with a sheer drop below and another standing casually on the top of a huge skyscraper.
Unfortunately, one day things didn’t go so well.
Whilst hanging from the roof of an extremely tall building, the man just couldn’t get
the perfect shot.
There’s no use risking your life by climbing tens of feet up a building just to post a
photo with your hair in your eyes.
He climbed back on to the top of the building and lowered himself back down again successfully
twice, but on the third time around, he lost his grip and slipped.
Because he was so high up in the first place, he ended up dropping 45 feet down on to another
rooftop instead of hitting the ground.
He probably didn’t die immediately, but by the time anyone found him, it was too late.
The whole thing is available on film, but you probably shouldn’t watch it unless you’re
a terrible person.
In another case of ignoring all common sense and the human instinct to survive, are the
people who take selfies with guns.
You know, the weapons designed to kill people.
In 2016, a sixteen-year-old boy tried to take a selfie with his father’s pistol, but his
coordination seemingly betrayed him.
He pressed the wrong shoot button, triggering the gun instead of the camera.
I’m not sure how you can mess things up that spectacularly, but he was only a boy.
Except a middle-aged man made the same mistake.
A 43-year-old Washington resident had been entertaining himself by taking photos with
an unloaded gun all day – well, we all unwind in different ways I guess – and managed
to successfully take a good few without shooting himself in the head.
However, he must have become overconfident in his ability to remember to remove the bullets,
because he eventually took a photo with one bullet left in and killed himself.
I’m not sure why he didn’t just leave the bullets out permanently, but I don’t
want to rub salt into the wound.
Now, these freak accidents are one thing, but can you imagine selfie-related deaths
being such a pandemic that the government had to release a pamphlet instructing people
how to take photos of themselves responsibly?
Well, that’s what happened in Russia due to the high number of injuries and deaths
caused by selfies in 2015.
The bizarre poster included instructions not to take selfies with guns or grenades, or
in front of trains or lions.
I know what you’re thinking – who would be stupid enough to do that?
Well, actually, a few people.
Two young soldiers in Siberia tried to take a selfie with a live grenade, and well, you
can guess what’s next – it exploded and killed them both.
At least they didn’t die in vain – the phone survived with the photo on it.
The same year, a Russian teenager with a keen interest in amateur photography tried to take
a selfie on a railway bridge in Saint Petersburg at night.
But, whilst trying to take the photograph, she lost her balance and tried to grab a high
voltage cable on the way down to stop the fall.
Instead, it electrocuted her, and she fell to the ground, shocking the friend who was
waiting for her below.
Confusingly, many of the articles regarding the incident published a photo of Angela Nikolau,
another Russian woman famous for posting photos of herself on high buildings.
So, is the whole thing a hoax, or did the press just publish a picture of the wrong
girl?
Selfie deaths are a confusing beast.
Worryingly, Russia isn’t even the country that faces the greatest problem with selfie
deaths – that honor goes to India.
In 2015, around half of all selfie-related deaths happened in India.
One man tried to take a selfie from a rock that collapsed beneath his feet, causing him
to fall around 60 feet and die instantly from head injuries.
Another group died whilst standing on a boat to pose for photos, only to capsize and drown.
The Indian government went so far as to declare selfie fatalities a national pandemic amongst
young Indians, and Mumbai police created sixteen ‘no selfie zones’ in areas deemed to be
high risk.
It’s somewhat ironic considering India’s then-prime minister Narendra Modi was known
for indulging in selfies himself, taking an iconic shot with the then-Chinese-premier
in 2015.
It seems that tourists caught the selfie bug whilst visiting the country, too.
A 66-year-old Japanese tourist once died trying to take a picture with the Taj Mahal.
It might not sound particularly dangerous, but it ended fatally.
The man was trying to take a picture with the iconic sight whilst descending the steps
when he lost his balance, fell, and died.
He’s not the only tourist who's been so desperate for the perfect Instagram shot that
they fell to their death.
One young woman recently died trying to take a photo at the edge of a cliff in Sydney.
The British female ignored the ‘warning’ signs telling people not to enter the fenced-in
cliff area – maybe she mistook them for Halloween decorations – to take a photo
by the picturesque waves below.
Her friends later realized she was missing and a helicopter recovered her body.
A similar thing happened to a Polish couple in Portugal, who stepped over safety barriers
to get the perfect angle for their dramatic shot, only to end up having a dramatic fall
into the Atlantic Ocean.
Seriously, people, it’s not that hard – just do what the signs are telling you to.
You might be thinking that you’d never take a picture from the top of a skyscraper, in
front of a live animal, or with a gun, so you’re safe from this embarrassing cause
of death.
You’ll never have ‘died from vanity’ written across your tombstone.
Unfortunately, people have died from taking selfies in even the safest of places.
In fact, the first known ‘selfie death’ happened in a place nobody was expecting it.
A few students in Lebanon were hanging out in the street of a safe neighborhood when
they decided to take a picture together.
No harm there, right?
Well in this case, yes.
It seems the boys were in the wrong place at the wrong time, because just as he hit
‘snap’, a car bomb went off.
The bomb successfully targeted the then-president of Lebanon, who died, but these innocent bystanders
were also taken out.
Just minutes after the original photo was taken, a second photo of the boy lying dead
on the floor was taken.
Even considering a selfie could put you in danger.
A man hiking through the Brecon Beacons mountain range with a selfie stick was struck by lightning,
and he may not have died if he’d gone without the ultimate embarrassing tourist accessory,
which has a metal arm.
There are definitely a few life lessons here.
Safety barriers are there for a reason, wild animals are dangerous, and weapons designed
for killing really are fatal.
I can’t believe I’m even having to say this.
There’s a time and place for questioning conventional wisdom, kids, but this isn’t
one of them.
If you want to keep learning about people dying in strange ways, then I won’t judge
you, we made the videos.
Depending on what type of person you are, you might be interested in this video about
people dying from laughter, or this one about them dying from loneliness.