National Post (National Edition)
Selfie after train accident spurs outrage
The man, dressed in white shirt and shorts, stands on a train station platform in northern Italy, posing for a selfie. Behind him, a Canadian woman lays sprawled on her back between the tracks, surrounded by rescue workers.
A train had just struck her. She later had to have her leg amputated, according to reports.
As the unidentified man captured the scene while apparently making a “V” for victory sign, he, himself, was photographed by a journalist from the daily Liberta newspaper.
Published Sunday under the headline, “The barbarism you don’t expect: the ‘selfie’ in front of a tragedy,” has provoked widespread anger among Italians who expressed outrage that anyone would take such seemingly perverse pleasure in posing for a selfie in front of a horrible accident.
“This woman has just been hit by a train in Piacenza. She will lose a leg. This imbecile is taking a selfie,” one woman posted.
“I’m sharing this photo that I took a few days ago and for which the caption might be, ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ ” the Liberta journalist who photographed the scene, Giorgio Lambri, said on Facebook. “That’s to say that we have completely lost our morality.”
It’s not clear how the May 26 accident happened. On Facebook, Lambri said the unidentified woman fell “as she came down from the train and the convoy moved … I read she was Canadian and she came down the wrong door.”
However, the BBC, quoting local reports at the time, said the control system for the train’s doors wasn’t working properly and that the woman may have fallen out of the train while opening a door on the wrong side.
Lambri said the paper was careful not to publish any photos “that could cause horror.”
The selfie taker was reportedly arrested and ordered to delete the photos. Lambri said that, from how the man spoke, “he seemed Italian to me.”
According to the BBC report, a commentary in the daily paper La Stampa said the incident speaks of a “cancer that corrodes the Internet,” while a radio host told listeners the human species was “galloping towards extinction.”
Neuroscientist Dean Burnett, who lectures at Cardiff University, has written in the past about why “supposedly normal, wholesome people” seem to revel in witnessing gruesome things happen to others.
“The other aspect here is the ethical one, as in why would someone see this instance as an opportunity for selfies and not immediately want to jump in and try to help?” The bystander effect may have been at play, he said.
“The truth is, in emergencies like this, for most people it’s really not clear what we’re supposed to do,” Burnett said in an email. “You could say we should ‘help’, but how do we do that? What’s the best approach? What intervention would be most helpful?”
“Unless you’re a trained medic or know decent first aid, it’s perfectly plausible that any involvement from you would make things worse,” Burnett said. When people do “hang back” out of fear of making things worse, “they often return to ‘normal’ behaviours, rather than just stand and stare,” he said. Today, in the self-obsessed selfie generation, that might include taking selfies.
But it’s not an entirely social media inspired phenomenon, he argued.
“Consider how many people slow down to gawk at a car crash on the highway, or the reports that the paparazzi were still taking photos at the scene of Princess Diana’s crash,” Burnett said.
“It may seem callous and unethical, but often times when faced with an unpleasant difficult situation, it’s quite likely that people will fall back on everyday behaviours to impose a sense of control and normality on an otherwise confusing and stressful event.”