A tourist in Australia was rescued after falling off a pier and into the Port Phillip Bay while she was browsing Facebook on her cell phone.
From BBC:
A Taiwanese tourist had to be rescued after accidentally walking off a pier in the Australian city of Melbourne while checking her Facebook page.The woman tumbled from St Kilda’s pier into Port Phillip Bay late on Monday night.Police were alerted to the incident by a witness and rescued her in a speedboat after about 20 minutes.The woman, who apologised, was taken to hospital for observation but police said she was fine.Senior Constable Dean Kelly of the water police said officers found her floating metres from the pier.
In an interview posted at The Age, Kelly described that he and the other officers arrived by boat and found the woman floating on her back in the water about 30 meters from the pier.
‘‘She wasn’t splashing around too much. She wasn’t in a panic even though she was in the water for probably 20 minutes,’’ Kelly said.
He also indicated how police found out what had distracted the woman.
‘‘She had a mobile phone in one of her hands and when we brought her onboard one of the first things she did was apologise and say sorry,’’ Senior Constable Kelly said.‘‘She explained that she was on her phone checking her Facebook page when she fell into the water.’’
In 2012, a woman here in the U.S. tripped and fell into Lake Michigan after becoming distracted because she was texting while walking on a pier.
“Distracted walking” is apparently a growing issue. Earlier this year, an Ohio State University study showed that injuries were on the rise for pedestrians walking while using their cell phones.
Hopefully people will just start using some common sense judgment before we start seeing big blue “text stop” signs for pedestrians.
(Featured image credit: Fairfax Media video via The Age)
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