French citizen Remy Lucidi, known for practicing extreme sports, died after falling from the 68th floor of an apartment building in Hong Kong. And he is just one of the young people who decided to risk their lives for the sake of social media posts.
Attempts to record attractive videos and various challenges on social networks have led to the death of several young people, both in Serbia and in the world, writes N1.
Lucidi (30), known online as Remi Enigma, was climbing the Treganter Tower complex on July 30 when he fell. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Lucidi has often shared tons of videos and photos of himself laughing while standing on the very edge of tall buildings — and his followers note that the captions alongside such photos, such as "life is too short" and "your comfort zone will kill you," now seem eerie .
And he is not an isolated case. Various challenges on Tik Tok and other networks, as well as the fight for clicks, have led to the death of young people.
In the first half of this year in the American state of Alabama, four people died trying to answer one challenge. People wanted to make the best possible impression in front of the camera, so they performed various stunts in the air while jumping from speedboats in motion. In those challenges, four broke their necks and died, and many "lucky" people ended up "only" with fractures.
The "camera effect" was stronger than reason.
Thirteen-year-old Jacob Stevens of Ohio was on a ventilator in the hospital for six days before he died in May of this year after overdosing on over-the-counter allergy medication while trying to take the "Benadryl Challenge," in in which participants take 12 to 14 antihistamines, six times the recommended dose, to induce hallucinations.
Jacob was trying to have fun at home with friends when he was filmed trying to answer a TikTok challenge, his father Justin said.
Unfortunately, Jacob is not the first victim of the Benadryl challenge. In August 2020, a girl (15) overdosed on allergy medicine and died.
And four teenagers lost their lives in a horrific crash in Buffalo last October that police suspected was the result of a "Kia Challenge" on TikTok. As the Buffalo police stated at the time, six people were in the stolen Kia Sportage vehicle, which crashed in October 2022.
In 2019, a Fordheim University student died in New York after falling from the tower of the university building. The media wrote at the time that she most likely participated in a challenge practiced by final year students - to make the most daring photo for social networks.
Photographer Connor Cummings (24) climbed together with a friend to the top of a building in Manhattan to photograph the panorama of New York. However, at one point he slipped and fell nine floors down and died on the spot.
One man was killed and five were injured when a bulldozer rolled over them in 2014 while trying to perform the then-popular Ice Bucket Challange.
The prosecution announced that 11 members of the bowling club in the town of Iselburg, on the border with the Netherlands, filled a bulldozer's bucket with 2.000 liters of water, with which they were supposed to be doused. As the bulldozer driver lifted the bucket, the machine overturned and the bucket fell on top of the six men. One died, while four others were transported to the hospital.
In the same year, an 18-year-old from Scotland died after allegedly participating in this global action and jumping off a cliff into an artificial lake.
In the USA that year, several people were injured while participating in the "Cold Water Challenge".
A young man in Osijek almost died because of a TikTok challenge. As can be seen in the video shared on Facebook by Branimir Hackenberger, a professor from the Department of Biology at the University of Osijek, the boy was sitting on a chair in the middle of the road in the dark. A car was approaching him, and the driver noticed it at the last moment and stopped. The boy then laughed, got up and walked away.
Risky behaviors of young people in Serbia as well
Risky behavior of young people for the sake of clicks, unfortunately, is a phenomenon that we have read about on the pages of society and chronicles in Serbia as well. A few years ago, the public was shocked by videos of young people from Leskov jumping out in front of cars onto the street, while their friends were filming them with their phones.
A video from March of this year, in which children can be seen jumping on the transparent, plastic roof of the Galerija shopping center in Belgrade, shocked the public.
They used the emergency exit, climbed onto the plastic roof and jumped on it.
Comments immediately started pouring in under the video, and the key question asked by the citizens was - "Where are the parents?".
In April of this year, two young men fell from the Petrovaradin Fortress, one of whom died.
The investigation established that at the bachelor party, one of the men on the rampart of the fortress wanted to take a photo or take a selfie, but he lost his balance, mechanically grabbed the man next to him, pulled him, and together they fell from the fortress.
A 2019-year-old girl from Nišlja died in April 15 when she fell from the roof of a building, from a height of about XNUMX meters, while filming video clips with her friends.
Apart from challenges, some users simply decide on risky moves just to be as popular as possible. It also happened that some Tiktokers from Serbia drive on Knez Mihailova street, even though it is only for pedestrians, all with the intention of showing off on the networks.
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