An horrific video of a young woman falling backwards off a low balcony and plunging 27 floors to her death is doing the rounds of various media today as authorities warn of the folly of taking risks for an impressive selfie.
“Your life is worth more than a selfie” is the message coming from emergency services in Panamá where 44-year-old mother of two Sandra Manuela da Costa Macedo lost her life so tragically last Friday morning.
Images of the fall – caught by building workers who had been trying in vain to warn her against sitting on the guardrail – show the young woman still holding on to the selfie stick as she toppled backwards.
Say reports, theories are that a strong gust of wind caused her to lose her balance.
The wind was cited as one of the reasons that Sandra Macedo didn’t heed the warnings being shouted at her: she may simply not have heard them, says the Daily Mail.
Authorities rushed to the scene within minutes of the woman’s recorded fall but there was nothing they could do.
Sandra Macedo had only recently arrived in Panamá, says tabloid Correio da Manhã. Her children have remained in Portugal, where her family is reported to be “destroyed” – particularly as an elder brother died two years ago, and her father is bedridden following a stroke.
But the overriding message here is the folly of taking risky selfies.
CM recalls recent deaths in Portugal, both of tourists here (click here and click here) – while the Daily Mail quoted a study by the All India Institute of Medical Studies in Delhi which has found that 259 people have died worldwide since 2011 “while attempting to take a selfie”.
More than 72% of the deaths have been men, with drowning “the most common cause of death during a selfie-taking attempt”.
