Snuffies: 18 Of The Most Horrifying Selfie-Related Tragedies

At least 49 people have died since 2014 in selfie-related accidents. Here are 15 cases that prove vanity can be fatal.

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At least 49 people have died since 2014 in selfie-related accidents. Here are 15 cases that prove vanity can be fatal.

1. ALLEGED MURDERER POSES FOR SNAPCHAT PHOTO IN FRONT OF HIS VICTIM

In February 2015, 16-year-old Maxwell Marion Morton shot and killed his friend Ryan Mangan, then sent another friend a Snapchat selfie posing in front of Mangan’s corpse. He then sent the same friend texts such as “Told you I cleaned up the shells” and “Ryan was not the last one.” A Pennsylvania DA remarked that in his 30-year career he’d never seen a killer take a self-portrait with his victim.

2. HE DIDN’T KNOW THE GUN WAS LOADED

Oscar Otero Aguilar. (YouTube)
Oscar Otero Aguilar. (YouTube)

While drinking with friends in Mexico City and playing with a gun to pose for Facebook selfies in July 2014, 21-year-old Oscar Otero Aguilar accidentally shot himself in the head. Friends who witnessed Aguilar’s unintentional suicide said he didn’t know the gun was loaded. A similar incident occurred with a Texas teenager in September 2015.

3. PULL THE HAND GRENADE PIN, SNAP THE PHOTO

Two young Russian men in the Ural Mountains blew their own heads off—presumably accidentally—after pulling the pin on a hand grenade and posing for a selfie in January 2015. They successfully captured their deaths on a mobile phone.

4. GORED TO DEATH IN A BULL STAMPEDE

During an annual bull-running festival in the Spanish town of Villaseca de la Sagra in August 2015, a man paused to take a selfie of the bulls chasing him. The pause would prove to be fatal.

5. FATAL BATHROOM SLIPUP DURING #SELFIEOLYMPICS

In his earnest attempt to compete in the #SelfieOlympics and snap a photo that he promised friends would be “Crazy AF,” 18-year-old Oscar Reyes accidentally slipped in his bathroom in January 2015, injured his head, and bled to death.

6. TEENAGE GIRL FALLS FROM BRIDGE, ELECTROCUTES HERSELF

In April 2014, only a month before her 18th birthday, amateur Russian daredevil photographer Xenia Ignatyeva fell from a railway bridge while attempting a selfie. She grabbed onto some rail cables while falling. The cables were live wires, and she was electrocuted to death.

7. GAZING INTO HIS SMARTPHONE, PILOT CRASHES PLANE

Video footage recovered from the wreckage of a Cessna single-engine airplane in a wheat field outside of Denver in January 2015 revealed that pilot Amritpal Singh and his passenger were taking multiple selfies with the flash on in the plane’s cabin before Singh lost control of his aircraft.

8. TOURIST TUMBLES DOWN STAIRS OF TAJ MAHAL TO HIS DEATH

While trying to take a selfie on the Taj Mahal’s steps in September 2015, an elderly male Japanese tourist lost his footing and tumbled down a staircase inside the mausoleum. He died of a heart attack.

9. TRIO OF INDIAN STUDENTS CREAMED BY A TRAIN

An attempt to take a “daredevil selfie” by posing on train tracks led to the deaths of three students in the town of Mathura, India in January 2015 when an oncoming train demolished them. A fourth student survived.

10. PUERTO RICAN MUSICIAN DIES IN MOTORCYCLE CRASH MOMENTS AFTER POSTING INSTAGRAM SELF-PORTRAIT

Jadiel, AKA . (YouTube)
Jadiel, AKA “El Tsunami.” (YouTube)

In May 2014, a popular Puerto Rican musician named Jadiel—AKA “El Tsunami”—snapped a photo of himself in a motorcycle helmet and uploaded it to Instagram mere seconds before a fatal motorcycle accident.

11. POLISH COUPLE PLUMMETS TO THEIR DEATH OFF A CLIFF IN PORTUGAL

During a vacation in Portugal with their two children in August 2014, a Polish couple overstepped a safety barrier on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and fell to their death. Their children, 5 and 6, witnessed the event but were unharmed.

12. ROMANIAN GIRL BURSTS INTO FLAMES

Anna Ursu. (YouTube)
Anna Ursu. (YouTube)

While attempting to take what she called the “ultimate selfie” atop a train in May 2015, Romanian teenager Anna Ursu stuck one of her legs up in the air and accidentally touched live cable wires, which sent 27,000 volts surging through her body and caused her to burst into flames. She died at a hospital with burns covering more than half of her body.

13. SEVEN TEENS DROWN AFTER ROWBOAT CAPSIZES

According to various reports, India accounts for anywhere from 40 to 50 percent of all selfie fatalities worldwide. In March 2015, a group of seven Indian teens went picnicking at a lake. When they stood up in their rowboat to take a selfie, the boat tipped over and all seven of them drowned to death.

14. TWO TURKS CRUSHED BY A TRUCK WHILE LYING ON THE ROAD

It’s not certain what temporary lapse of reason would impel five people to pose for a selfie while lying on an open road, but this egregious error in judgment led to two of them being hit and killed by a speeding truck in Turkey right before Christmas in 2015.

15. MAN POSES WITH RATTLESNAKE, GETS BITTEN

In July 2015, a San Diego man thought it would be a good idea to pose for a selfie with a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake obviously objected to this idea and bit him. The man survived but racked up a hospital bill over $150,000.

16. WATCH THE ROAD, LADIES, NOT YOURSELVES

Karaoke can be a fun and emotionally bonding experience for wannabe singers, but it is perhaps unwise to perform karaoke while driving a car and looking into your smartphone camera, as two Iranian women would learn in 2014. After their car crash was captured on tape, these feisty dames took another round of selfies in the hospital.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyfvc6qJUw%5D

17. YOUNG MAN STANDS NEXT TO TRAIN TRACKS, GETS KICKED IN THE HEAD BY SPEEDING CONDUCTOR

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy8Yt-P614w%5D

A young Canadian man named Jared Frank became an overnight Internet celebrity after posing a YouTube video of himself getting kicked in the skull by a train conductor in April 2014 as Frank posed near some tracks in Peru.

18. SELFIE ADDICT ATTEMPTS SUICIDE BECAUSE HE COULDN’T GET THE PERFECT PICTURE

Danny Bowman. (YouTube)
Danny Bowman. (YouTube)

British teenager Danny Bowman allegedly took over 200 selfies a day—including around 10 immediately upon waking up. He would often spend up to 10 hours daily posing for his smartphone camera. “I was constantly in search of taking the perfect selfie and when I realized I couldn’t, I wanted to die,” he confessed to a reporter after an unsuccessful 2014 suicide attempt. Bowman was diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder. He soldiers onward, bravely struggling not to take so many self-portraits. Thought Catalog Logo Mark