How many more have to die? Couple perish in selfie accident

A few weeks ago we posted a story about the alarming number of people dying for a photograph. We’re not talking about combat photographers or those working in extreme conditions, where the odds can very suddenly turn against you. We’re talking about everyday people trying to spruce up their Instagram feeds shooting selfies in places they really shouldn’t be.

Most recently, an Indian couple living in San Jose, California, plunged 245m to their death at a renowned lookout spot, Taft Point, at the Yosemite National Park in California. There, visitors can walk to the very edge of a granite ledge and peer off into the nothingness. There is no safety railing at the lookout. Clearly, common sense must come into play when visiting such locations, and the couple, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, would not have been the only ones taking selfies. But a mere metre is all it would have taken to prevent this tragedy.

Another hiker, Sean Matteson, who was quoted in The Guardian, said that Moorthy stood out from the crowd because her hair was dyed bright pink and that she made him a little nervous because he felt she was standing too close to the edge. “She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself,” said Matteson. “She gave me the willies. There aren’t any railings. I was not about to get that close to the edge. But she seemed comfortable. She didn’t seem like she was in distress or anything.”

On the couple’s travel Instagram feed, Moorthy wrote: “A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL??? . . . Is our life just worth one photo?”

A report in The Daily Mail, however, quotes another hiker who was at the same location saying that they never saw Vishnu Viswanath with Meenakshi Moorthy the entire time they were there. So, the exact nature of the accident may never be known.

 

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