Tourist Falls 2,000 Feet to Death While Taking Photos at Ski Resort

A tourist plunged almost 2,000 feet to his death while taking photos of the surrounding landscape with a group at a ski resort.
A 29-year-old man from Ireland died after falling from the Bansko mountain ski resort in southern Bulgaria last week.
Bansko, which lies at the foot of the Pirin mountains, is one of the most popular ski sites in Bulgaria for foreign tourists.
According to CBS News, the tourist was said to be part of a group taking photos of the scenery at the ski resort last Tuesday afternoon.
As he was shooting landscape photos, the man reportedly lost his balance and plummeted from a height of around 1,900 feet.
Mountain rescue teams quickly responded to the emergency and found the tourist. He was taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Razlog in a serious condition with multiple injuries.
According to Bulgarian doctor Dr. Valentin Belchev, “life-saving measures were taken, and a full assessment of his injuries was carried out” at the hospital. However, he remained in critical condition and died on Wednesday.
“Despite all efforts of our medical team, he eventually succumbed to his grave injuries,” Dr. Belchev tells CBS News.
The man’s death at the Bulgarian ski resort is the latest in a string of incidents that have seen tourists being injured or dying while in the pursuit of a photograph.
Last year, a woman fell to her death off a waterfall as she tried to retrieve her camera tripod after it dropped over a ledge. Meanwhile, a professional gymnast plunged to her death while taking a selfie near the castle that inspired Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.
A recent study suggested that taking selfies and photos may pose a “public health problem” amid the near ubiquitous use of smartphones and social media apps.
The paper scraped news reports of selfie-related deaths as well as a cross-sectional study by the iO Foundation that found 379 people were killed while taking selfies around the world between January 2008 and July 2021.
The researchers identified falls from height as the most common type of injury. They said that tourists were most at risk, with the most common cause of death being falling from cliffs or waterfalls while attempting to take a selfie.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
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