A 23-year-old Chinese woman has reportedly plunged to her death while recording herself on camera, the second person to die that way in recent weeks in China.
“Xiao Qiumei, 23, was a crane operator who shared videos of her career to a reported social media audience of 100,000 followers,” the New York Post reported. “In her final video, she is speaking into a camera in what appears to be a crane cabin when the camera suddenly switches to images of blurry equipment whizzing past the lens. Qiumei fell about 160 feet, according to reports.”
“Eyewitnesses say that Quimei fell to the ground with her phone in her hand on Tuesday around 5:40 p.m., after most of her co-workers had left the site in the city of Quzhou, in China’s western Zhejiang Province, according to The Sun,” the New York paper wrote.
The Post noted that another social media influencer, Sofia Cheung, 32, of Hong Kong, fell to her death while trying to take a waterfall selfie for Instagram on July 10.
“Death by selfie” have been rising ever since the advent of social media.
A Polish couple vacationing in Portugal in 2015 along with their children decided to hike to the beautiful cliffs at Cabo de Roca, a popular tourist destination near Lisbon. They strolled up to the edge, looking over the Atlantic Ocean, and decided to take a selfie. Then they both slipped and plunged off the cliff, which is 300 feet high in some places. They landed in the ocean, but rescue workers could not retrieve their bodies until the next day.
Their children, ages 5 and 6, witnessed their plunge. They were delivered to Polish diplomats in Spain and counseled by psychologists.
In July 2015, a man in his 50s was walking along in the hills of Wales. A Duke Of Edinburgh Award assessor, he was leading children on a hike in the mountain range of Powys.
“Then, dark clouds blew in,” Lifezette reported. “The assessor was reportedly standing at the summit (always the best place to be in a storm) and waiting for a group of 15 teenagers to arrive. Unluckily for him, he was carrying a ‘selfie stick,’ those annoying extendable arms selfiers use to snap pictures of themselves to make it look like they have friends. It was, of course, made of metal.”
Ironically, the D of E is a charity set up to give youngsters aged 14-24 “the chance to develop skills for life and work, fulfill their potential and have a brighter future.”
In May 2015, A “selfie mad” Romanian teenager went in search of the “ultimate selfie” to post on her Facebook page, Lifezette wrote.
“After what must have been seconds of thought, she decided to climb onto the top of an electric train, lay on her back and stick one leg in the air. So, she and a friend toddled off to the town of Iasi in the north and found just the spot. As she lay on top, a passerby warned her to keep her head down — you know, wires and stuff. She did, but that wasn’t enough. With a loud bang, the electric field that encircled the overhead cables zapped her with 27,000 volts, setting her afire.”