Outrage after man takes a selfie in front of train tragedy
AN ITALIAN man has been criticised after taking a selfie on a railway platform where a woman had just been hit by a train.
The woman, a Canadian tourist, subsequently had her leg amputated.
The young man made a “V for victory” sign with his right hand while taking a selfie with his left, just yards from where medics were attending to the injured woman.
The scene was captured by a local news photographer, with the picture appearing in many Italian newspapers and sparking a debate on voyeurism, insensitivity and the culture of selfietaking. One daily paper called the episode “a portrait of disheartening exhibitionism”.
The Italian police investigated the incident but concluded that the young man, who has not been named, had committed no crime. They ordered him to delete the images from his phone and then released him.
The incident happened at a railway station in Piacenza, northern Italy, on May 26, and came to light this week.
“Houston, we have a problem – we have completely lost a sense of ethics,” said Giorgio Lambri, the photographer from the newspaper Liberta, who took the picture of the scene.
He wrote an article for the paper that was entitled “The barbarism you don’t expect: the ‘selfie’ in front of a tragedy”.
It was not clear how the woman was hit by the train in the middle of the railway track – some reports suggested she was rushing to catch another when she was struck.
One Italian wrote on social media: “Why are we surprised? This is the level of imbecility of young people these days.”