There have been many sad tales about tragic deaths caused by people in pursuit of the perfect selfie. The latest example we must unfortunately add to the list is that of 16-year-old Agung Reynaldi, a high school student from Cengkareng, West Jakarta .
Agung and eight of his friends were visiting a waterfall in the Curug Ngumpet area of Gunungsari Village in Bogor yesterday afternoon.
The head of police operations in Bogor, Bagas Dody, said that Agung was intending to take a selfie under the waterfall when tragedy struck.
“When at the location, the victim walked into the middle of the waterfall but he slipped and fell and drifted. Under the pool there are a lot of rocks and eddies of water,” Bagas told Tribunnews today.
According to Bagas, Agung got trapped in a vortex below the water and his body got wedged between some stones so that he could not pull himself free.
One of Agung’s friends, Muhamad Hidayat Rifky, tried to help the victim. But Muhamad also began to be pulled into the water and had to be rescued by others.
In the end, there was nothing Agung’s friends could do to bring him to the surface, and his body was pulled deeper under water until they could no longer see it.
This morning at around 8am, a search and rescue team came to the waterfall to search for Agung. After about 40 minutes of searching, they managed to recover his body, which was brought to a funeral home in Cengkareng later in the day.
The Telegraph reported that more people died taking selfies in 2015 than from shark attacks. So please be careful the next time you’re trying to go for that one-of-a-kind selfie shot, and ask yourself if it’s really worth it.
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