IN RECENT YEARS, since the surge in popularity of the selfie, there have been a number of deaths linked to the act of taking a photo of oneself.
Just last December a young Pakistani man was killed after being hit by a train as he tried to take a selfie with it.
The 22 year old was an employee of the railways and was standing on the track taking the selfie with his phone when the train struck him. Data services provider Pricenomics trawled through three years of news archives and compiled each reported instance of selfie-related death.
In that period, there were 49 reported selfie-related deaths.
As the chart below shows, the highest number of these types of deaths occurred when people fell from heights, like cliffs or buildings
There were four reported deaths by gunshot. In one incident in Russia last year, a woman accidentally pressed the trigger of a gun while posing with if for a selfie. She had the gun pointed at her temple and was killed instantly.
One person in the last three years was killed by an animal while trying to take a selfie. He was running with the bulls in Spain and was gored in the neck.
Drownings were the second most frequent causes of selfie-related deaths. During recent storms in Ireland, members of the public were advised not to take ‘storm selfies’ as they would be putting themselves at risk.
Authorities warned at the time that no photograph was worth losing your life.
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