Woman Electrocuted and Burned to Death Taking a Selfie in Russia

Undated file photo of a person taking a selfie. Pixabay/CC0

A woman in Russia who allegedly climbed onto an electricity transformer to take a selfie ended up electrocuted and burned to death.

Witnesses cited in a report by The Sun said local police near the village of Kuznetsy were still trying to identify the woman’s badly burned body.

The only description of the victim released by police is that the woman was 5 feet 6 inches tall.

A phone was found near the scene, which is located about 50 miles east of Moscow, according to the report.

Olga, a witness, was cited in the report as saying: “Most likely she decided that she wouldn’t touch anything and nothing bad would happen. But it is enough only to climb on the transformer structure to get a severe electric shock.”

Police said there have been no reports of women missing in the area that fit the victim’s description. They have appealed to the public for help identifying the mystery woman.

Russia is second only to India for the number of recorded selfie deaths.

Tourists Warned About Taking Selfies Near Dangerous Spot in Australia

Instagram models, tourists, and others have been warned by officials not to get to close to a scenic ledge.

An Instagram model popularized Diamond Bay, Australia, after she took a photo near the cliff’s edge.

But it has prompted an official, Stephen Leahy of Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopters, to issue a warning to a local news outlet.

“It’s really easy just to take that one step too far for the perfect picture and you’re in dire straits,” he told Australia’s Nine News.

“A wind or a stumble or anything [and] that’s the end of them because it’s sheer cliff down,” resident Rona Kahn added to Nine News about the perils of the ledge.

“We do see a lot of tourists that come past, I believe there’s a tour bus that drops off a bunch of people and it makes sense, it’s super beautiful down here,” resident Laura Dewit added to the outlet.

Over 250 Recorded ‘Selfie Deaths’

A study from October 2018 claims that between 2011 and 2017 there have been 259 recorded deaths of people taking selfies.

“Selfie deaths have become an emerging problem and we performed this study to assess the epidemiology of selfie-related deaths across the globe,” the researchers wrote in an abstract of the study.

Researchers point out that the trend is driven partly by technological advance.

“There are sites sharing information on ‘how to have a perfect selfie’ and ‘different poses for selfie,’” the researchers say, adding that the “introduction of ’selfie sticks’ and ’selfie shoe' have enhanced obsession among people for selfies.”

Men were found to be far more likely to die trying to take the perfect selfie, with about 72.5 percent of the total deaths attributed to men.

“The number of deaths in females is less due to risky behavior,” the researchers wrote.

A woman snaps a selfie as she throws a coin in the Trevi Fountain in Rome on June 21, 2017. Tiziana FabiAFP/Getty Images

Researchers also noted that the leading cause of selfie-related death was due to drowning. For the most part, this was on account of people being hit by waves or falling out of boats.

The study notes that “new terms have been introduced such as koolfie, restaurantfie, musclefie, dentisfie, and many more.”

The study’s authors suggest the motivation for taking selfies is the desire for attention.

“Taking selfies is considered to be a mode of self-expression in today’s generation like looking in a mirror. Selfies are well popular among Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest users. It is rewarding for individuals seeing the number of likes and positive comments and this further influences them to post unique pictures which may also involve indulging in risky behavior to click selfies.”

The study, published in the Journal of Family Medicine, also identified other top causes such as falls from high places and being attacked posing with dangerous animals.

Over half of the deaths were in India, where the research was carried out by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

“The highest number of incidents and selfie-deaths has been reported in India followed by Russia, United States, and Pakistan,” the researchers wrote in the abstract.

The researchers conclude that: “‘No selfie zone’ areas should be declared across tourist areas especially places such as water bodies, mountain peaks, and over tall buildings to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths.”