BusinessBend: Death by selfie is a tough way to go. The selfie has been around for awhile but these people certainly did not learn how to take them safely. Summary, do not take a selfie next to a walrus, train or hold a selfie stick in a lightning storm.
In 2015, a young Pakistani man, only twenty two years of age, decided it would be a great idea to take a selfie in front of a moving train. He died when he took to long to take the selfie and the train crushed him.
Darwin sticks.
The shark sez: “Hold my beer and watch this”
Latest winner of the Darwin Award. No longer contaminating the gene pool.
The pic on the home page appears to be a sand tiger shark. Impressive dentition but no known human fatalities. This might even be an aquarium pic which equals a non-aggressive species, well fed. (Some aquaria do this for a fee.) That guy is likely still alive and ok. The Goje has been in close quarters like that while spearfishing and had something she (female bull) wanted and found it comprehensively unpleasant. I wouldn’t tempt Darwin to become the first known fatality, nonetheless. I would relax a little more seeing it cruising the scene than I would a regular tiger or a bull but I wouldn’t take an eye off it. If it is big enough to hurt, maim or kill, I generally keep a respectful distance, even dolphins, especially with young. Many a last utterance heard by victims is “oh, it’s friendly and won’t hurt you.” I will concede, however, that Trainboy and the play toy for the walrus are definitely Darwin material.
With regard to the lightning guy in Jolly Olde, it’s been said before a million times — lightning isn’t attracted to metal. It’s just looking for a quick path to ground. One might argue that the big bag of salty fluid in which we dwell is a better conductor than the selfie stick that only has about half an inch of cross-sectional area to conduct. Depending on the circumstances of the strike, and they vary wildly, it might actually help conduct some charge around an electrically sensitive organ like the heart or brain. This guy apparently happened to have a selfie stick, yet the other two did not. Correlation does not prove causality. The case they are trying make is that stick = strike. Not so, electron breath. This one isn’t a selfie stick death. I don’t care if he was pointing it to the heavens railing at God Almighty, he would have gotten the same treatment had he just been wagging his pointy finger. Or doing nothing at all. Wrong place, wrong time. RIP Mr Brit hiker.
Lastly, the sensational journalism squirts out of the pen so easily yet takes much blather like this to debunk it. The eyes glaze and people no longer pay attention and the myths begin another life cycle. Think AGW, for one.