It has become the favorite pastime of people all over the world, but following a spate of deaths Russia has issued a set of guidelines for taking safer selfies.
Among the advice, some include “no taking a self portrait with a gun or posing alone in front of a lion,” reports Daily Mail.
In its new leaflet, video and web campaign, Russia’s Interior Ministry uses road sign style-images to warn that taking “a cool selfie could cost you your life.”
The push comes after several deaths, and a string of high hazard poses caused around 100 people to end up in hospital.
“Unfortunately, we have noted that the number of accidents caused by self-photography is constantly increasing,” said Yelena Alexeyeva, an aide to the interior minister. “We are talking about hundred cases of injuries for sure.”
The warning comes after a 21-year-old woman in Moscow accidentally shot herself in the head in May while taking a selfie, holding a pistol. She suffered head injuries but survived.
That was just one in a spate of selfie-related accidents.
In January, two young men blew themselves up in the Urals while taking a selfie holding a hand grenade with the pin pulled out. The cell phone with the selfie survived as a record. In May, a teenager in the Ryazan region died while attempting a self-photo as he climbed on a railway bridge and accidentally came into contact with live wires.
Xenia Ignatyeva, 17, plunged 30 feet to her death in April last year, as she climbed on a railway bridge to take a selfie in Saint Petersburg.
The keen amateur photographer was electrocuted when she grabbed a live wire to try and stop falling.
“Before taking a selfie, everyone should think about the fact that racing after a high number of ‘likes’ could lead him on a journey to death and his last extreme photo could turn out to be posthumous,” Alexeyeva warned.
