A Texas teenager who fell off a 50-foot bridge while trying to take a selfie says his experience should serve as a warning for others.
Triston Bailey, 18, climbed the Margaret McDermott Bridge in Dallas, hoping to snap selfies with the skyline in the background.
While climbing, Bailey slipped and plummeted 50 feet. The impact his body made on the ground left an imprint.
“I could have easily passed away that night. I could have easily been gone. If it was just one more rotation I could not be here,” Bailey told CBS DFW from the hospital, still recovering four months after the fall.
“I broke my pelvis, I had a rib fracture, a punctured lung, I broke my face a whole bunch and I had lacerations on my spleen,” he added.
While he’s expected to ultimately make a full recovery, the teen hopes people who read about his story will think twice before trying to complete dangerous stunts to take selfies.
Doctors who have treated him say he’s lucky to be alive.
“It’s amazing that he didn’t snap his neck. It’s amazing that he’s not a paraplegic—or broke his neck,” said Methodist Health System Chief of Trauma Dr. J Darryl Amos. “It’s truly miraculous.”
Amos said he supported Bailey telling his story.
“They have this concept that it just won’t happen to me,” Amos told NBC DFW. “So when one of their friends experiences that and is brave enough and has the courage to step forward and tell his story, it’s a message I hope will resonate with his peer group.”
The general distraction of phones has led to more car crashes and accidents, added Dr. Edgar Araiza, an orthopedic trauma surgeon.
“Whether it’s people that are not being careful on these motorized scooters, someone whose car breaks down on the side of the road, you see quite a few of those patients who get hit because of the fact that they’re not aware of who is driving around them or trying to cross the freeway,” Araiza told KERA.
Selfie Deaths
From fall 2011 to fall 2017, 259 people died while taking selfies, according to researchers from India. A selfie is defined as a photograph that a person takes of himself or herself or a group while using a smartphone of another device.
The study looked at selfie deaths reported across the world.
Researchers found that about 72.5 percent of the deaths were males and the rest were females. The highest number of selfie deaths was reported in India, followed by Russia, the United States, and Pakistan.
The high number of selfie-related deaths in India was attributed in part to the country having a high share of the world’s population of 30-year-olds or younger.
The mean age of the victims was 22.9 years old with about half the total selfie deaths occurring among the 20 to 29-year-old age group. Another 36 percent of the deaths occurred in the 10 to 19-year-old age group.
“Drowning, transport, and fall form the topmost reasons for deaths caused by selfies. We also classified reasons for deaths due to selfie as risky behavior or non-risky behavior. Risky behavior caused more deaths and incidents due to selfies than non-risky behavior. The number of deaths in females is less due to risky behavior than non-risky behavior while it is approximately three times in males,” the researchers wrote in a summary of results.
“About three-fourth of selfie deaths occurred in males. A project called selfiecity has established that women take more selfies as compared to men. But because men are more likely to take risk to click selfie as compared to women, it justifies the higher number of deaths and incidents for men.”
