A woman in her 20s fell to her death from a bridge after she stumbled over the edge while using her smartphone in Higashi-Izu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Saturday.
According to police, the woman, who is from Chiba Prefecture, was in a car with her father and her friend at around 9:30 a.m., on their way to town from their lodging facility where they were spending the long weekend, local media reported.
The woman’s father stopped the car near the narrow bridge along a mountain road. Police said he told them his daughter walked across the bridge looking to take photos of a deer in the nearby bushes, when she apparently fell over the 70-cm-high railing.
The woman fell about 40 meters into a ravine. Her father called 119 and she was rushed to hospital where she died about four hours later.
© Japan Today
63 Comments
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Jay
The dangers of smartphone addiction. RIP to the deceased. It would be nice to think she was doing something extremely important and valuable on her smartphone at the time, but the reality is she was in all likelihood mindlessly doom-scrolling through Instagram and TikTok.
If ever you needed a reason to do away with such mind-numbing soul destroyers, let this be it. The more people wake up and turn away from the toxicity of social media, the less this young woman's death will have been in vain.
TaiwanIsNotChina
70 cm seems way too low for a guard rail with a 40 m drop on the other side.
kintsugi
Crossed a bridge to take photos and fell over the side. 70 cm seems too low. About the height of a table.
Paul
Selfies kill you!
dbsaiya
For photos of a deer? C'mon....you can get better photos of a deer on the internet. R.I.P. Hope this is a lesson for others so that her death won't be in vain.
Elvis is here
indeed. The height of two coffee tables.
kurisupisu
I’m surprised that there aren’t more deaths due to the constant fixation on smartphones
Harry_Gatto
Perhaps if you read the article before commenting?
nosuke
Rip that what happens to phone addicts.
lesson learnt? Not to live on your phone
Brian Wheway
As a contractor here in the UK i see this every day, people are addicted to there so called smart phones, its almost like a conjointed twin, the trouble is people are so oblivious to there surroundings, like traffic, other people, contractors digging up paths etc, every day i see people zig zag through numerious warning signs saying path closed etc, and they still walk into danger zones, and when we escort these people out of the danger area we get a mouth full of abuse, unfortunately this lady has fellen to her death, i am not surprised it doesnt happen more often, as people are not aware of there surroundings. although this has made the news, I wonder how many more car/pedestrian accidents there is during every week due to pedestrians just walking out into the road, or at traffic lights.
commanteer
Sounds like one of the countless narrow bridges you see in the remote mountain roads here with concrete barriers that are about 70cm, though 40 meters is a bigger drop than most. Sorry people lacking empathy here - it could happen to anyone, especially younger people.
wallace
Bridge safety review and warning signs of using phones while crossing.
wallace
The side barriers are just a couple of low-level poles between posts. Not substantial even without using a phone.
"This unfortunate event serves as a somber reminder of the need for caution when seeking to capture the beauty of nature. It also underscores the importance of prioritizing safety in our quests for adventure and exploration. Our thoughts go out to the family and loved ones affected by this tragic loss."
https://www.tokyohive.com/article/2023/11/tragic-incident-on-a-bridge-as-a-woman-falls-to-her-death-while-filming-wild-deer
wallace
The woman lost her footing and went over the side.
ishel
All the people judging the lady about smartphone use... she was just trying to take photos of wildlife, seems the rail was unhelpfully low. How about a little compassion though?
Mark
RIP lady,
70 cm railing?
How sad, i hope her father will find peace soon, how painful this must have been.
gogogo
70cm! Sure she was dumb but 70cm seems like a trip hazard
Dee
If she would have fell taking pictures with a regular camera, then people would have said she should have used her smartphone.
wallace
This accident could have happened to anyone.
John-San
it allow to Wallace: She fell over a guard rail. I know this bridge. We use to park my car on the bridge as the bridge lead onto an abandon road that led into the forest where we hunted pigs and deer in. The bridge has been in disuse since the early 2000,s the road base has moss and a build of slimy leave litter. It is in shade most of the day. If the woman was wearing high heel or unsuitable shoes one could easy slip over and fall over the guard rail.
Sanjinosebleed
Japan and safety standards are mutually exclusive! 70cm is an absolute waste of time as a “safety” barrier! RIP
virusrex
As the article read this is not the case, the smartphone was simply the tool she had to film a deer. She could have tripped the same while using a camera.
Hercolobus
ONG. Rest in peace. Secure your footing before making the next move.
Elaine
What an interesting way to spin a story about a tragedy into a clickbait article to cause debate about smartphone use. The woman fell while trying to film a deer which is hardly smartphone addiction. Yes she was using her phone to film as most young people do but this could have easily been about someone using a 35mm camera to take a picture of wildlife and falling as well. I understand online sites need people to click and they need their comment sections to be rife with unnecessary conflicts and comments to bring in numbers or whatever but it's becoming so sad to see people's tragedies turned into clickbait. Tokyohive and a few others have the actual story with more accurate headline.
Jonathan Prin
For comparison, in France minimal height of guardrails is 100cm. No less. It is just due to physics rule and standard height of humans with a safety coefficient.
70cm was perhaps OK when Japanese were all small. I bet she is not 1,50m short.
Any person 1,80m or higher would fall just by thinking he can cling on it initially.
In between, any wrong slip is a potential accident (and death senrence).
There are minimal safety rules that should be worldwide.
Harry_Gatto
I'm sitting here working at an antique dining table which I use as a desk and it is 74 cm high, I've just measured it. I've used it for many years and have never tripped over it; have you ever tripped over a dining table?
Chabbawanga
The heading gives the impression she walked off a cliff whilst absorbed in her phone. Sounds more like she tripped whilst taking a photo.
njca4
The headline is causing confusion here.
She was using her smartphone as a camera to take a picture, as I've done many times, not walking on a dangerous road surfing the Net.
Poor father ... Really feel terrible for him.
CaptDingleheimer
How sad, a young person with so much ahead of her. And I can't imagine the horror for that poor dad.
Patient Zero
Yes, but the trend shows plainly that while males generally will take photos of "X", women generally will try to include themselves in the photo with "X". Thus, it is likely she was taking a selfie and edged closer to the railing to get a better angle. Downvote all you want. This would be the logical assumption until proven otherwise.
R
railing should be 1100cm atleast for a place that high.
who the heck approved the 70cm. the architect in me is kinda upset, waste of life over a design flaw
theFu
Distracted walking kills. Darwin at work.
We all have done this from time to time, so don't act like you never take photos with a phone and shuffle your feet just a bit to get a better stance.
englisc aspyrgend
70 cm is a trip hazard not a safety barrier. Without knowing the full facts none of us are in a position to criticise the unfortunate lady.
Her poor father watching his child die, heart breaking.
Paul
Problem of assuming life is safe! Like crossing the road without checking if it is safe to do so. Tripping over railings on a bridge while concentrating on taking photos. Walking in to a lamp post while using a smartphone. Falling off a cliff while taking a selfie. You are the only one that is responsible for your own safety, it is not possible top make life 100% safe. As you can take your eye out with a pencil or even kill someone with one, shall we ban pencils or put warning signs on them? Stupidity is most dangerous!!!
yipyip
She wouldn't have been checking her "likes" on a camera.
wolfshine
Some people have pointed out that the height for the railing was too low - I am inclined to agree.
Others have pointed out this was caused by smartphone use and social media addiction. Again, I am inclined to agree. I have noticed, especially in East Asian countries, that young people tend to be way too terminally online and effectively conquered by the Instagram effect. I remember, in Shibuya a few years ago, you couldn't walk five feet or even enter a department store without seeing girls dancing in front of tripod mounted iPhones. While out drinking, I met these two young women who mid conversation, actually needed to step outside of the bar so they could pump out another quick TikTok upload.
Social media is nothing more than glorified advertising platforms. The highest bidders win. A select few influencers can make it profitable, but it is very rare, and typically they are selling their souls in order to do so. The average nobody on social media stands no chance, and is effectively just giving big corporations free business analytics in the form of data harvesting. In other words, it's not worth it to try to photograph every last thing you see, if your whole plan is to post it for someone else's consumption.
Wrong. With a camera, you would likely have a wide angle lens that allows you to take the shot from a farther away distance, thus reducing the need to put yourself in a more dangerous position. The big difference between cameras and smartphones is that cameras do not make it easy to take selfies/upload to social media immediately.
Yes, this a big problem. Everybody is trying to win the social media game. It's not just, "Here is this beautiful thing", it's "Here's this beautiful thing, and I am the one enjoying it!!" People aren't thinking about what they're looking at anymore, only how they can benefit from it. It's creepy.
Keepyer Internetpoints
It makes me sad how misleading the article and headline are, and how there are plenty every day, and people just trust it and roll with it and don't question it, or worse, they are desperately looking from some sensational angle to blame smartphones for anything they can. She was trying to get a picture with a handheld camera, which is merely a feature of modern cell phones. This could have happened in the 1960s. This could have happened with a handheld video camera. Or Poloroid camera. This has almost nothing to do with her cell phone or cell phones in general. It has to do with photography.
Keepyer Internetpoints
There are lots of overly low guardrails in Japan, and the one that always comes to mind was the one the carload of kids went over after being hit by a drunk driver. The kids all drown. And we got zero tolerance drinking and driving laws despite the fact the driver was WAY over the legal limit. Later, the height of the guardrail was quietly raised by the government, the ACTUAL party responsible for the deaths, that got off scot free.
Hopefully someone will wake up and see who is responsible for this death, cause this could have been someone posing for a picture, or distracted by a rainbow. In fact a guardrail this low can be worse than no guardrail at all because you just trip over it.
zulander
Tragic? Yes.
70cm isnt a high barrier- sufficient for light traffic perhaps, especially if not a foot bridge.
Is it worth extra cost involved for future projects to raise the height? Perhaps.
Is it worth upgrading existing thousands of bridges to have a higher barrier? Probably not.
Also one must consider if there might be any inadvertent accidents where a lower barrier would have prevented loss of life etc.
This is a tragic event indeed - though I hope it wouldnt be used for a drive for yet more and bigger barriers all over the place.
virusrex
As the accident is described this is not the case, trying to get a picture of an elusive target do not make it "likely" she was also trying to get herself in the picture.
And nowhere it is described this was happening while she fell, making unsubstantiated claims to support a criticism means you don't have actual things that were happening to support it.
Yet no actual argument is given for this claim that would not apply to someone holding a camera as well.
Not necessarily and there is no part of the story that says the accident was due to the distance to the target but the difficulty to get it on the picture. You are just assuming things for the purpose of forcing your criticism.
kintsugi
The woman lost her footing slipped on the slimy leaves and went over the side.
wolfshine
Actually it does. She literally walked across a bridge because she wanted a photo of the deer, ie closing the distance to the target. With a long enough lens this wouldn't have been necessary.
masterblaster
Using her smart phone ... well the meaning is quite vague.
Using as in taking a photo? Not unreasonable. Much of the fault is with the height of the railing.
Staring at her screen watching anime while walking? Her fault 100 per cent
opheliajadefeldt
What a tragic ending for this young ladies life, given what I have read about that road and its condition this would probably happened whether or not she was using a smart phone or a real camera. The guard rail was so low and should be 3 times higher and maybe this would have saved her. My condolences to all her family, to lose a loved one so young is beyond words. ...........But I must say one thing more about smart phone usage, how many time have we all seen people crossing roads whilst staring at them, I know I have, almost everyday. In fact just 2 days ago, I saw an idiot using his whilst riding a bike, he was completely oblivious to his surroundings.
Jonathan Prin
@Kniknaknokkaer
Instead of making fun of short people, learn.
According to Japan's National Health and Nutrition Survey, the average height for a man in Japan was only 160.3 cm (5 feet 3.1 inches) and the average height for women in Japan was only 148.9 cm (4 feet 10 inches) 70 years ago, which shows that there is approximately 10 cm height increase in Japan over the 70 years.
Zaphod
Sanjinosebleed
It is a safety barrier for people other than the smartphone zombies who can never take their eyes of that screen. RIP, but sorry that was entirely self-inflicted.
Three goals
Gee, can't be much of railing if it's only 70 cm high! RIP to the young women.
gcFd1
You're wrong, This would not have happened if she had a regular camera--in fact--it didn't.
It happened because of her smartphone.
virusrex
You are not giving any argument, just baselessly contradicting things you don't like without even making the effort to argue how this is the case.
You have been unable to make even one argument for this to be the case, that would mean you understand the claim you make is not true.
kintsugi
gcFd1
It happened because she lost her footing, slipped, and went over the side. Could have also happened without a smartphone or camera.
https://www.tokyohive.com/article/2023/11/tragic-incident-on-a-bridge-as-a-woman-falls-to-her-death-while-filming-wild-deer
yipyip
But it wouldn't have because she never would have been on the bridge in the first place to take a picture of deer so she could upload a selfie, which she didn't get to do because she was absorbed in her smart phone screen and lost track of her footing as a result.
Thunderbird2
I don't know why I'm surprised, but this comments section seems intent on victim blaming... maybe ask why the fences was so low - I wouldn't even DRIVE over a bridge like that let alone get out. The fence should have been at least a meter and a half... and mesh... with steel bars.
RIP poor lady.
virusrex
In no part of the description it says she was taking a selfie nor uploading the picture, claiming imaginary things to criticize the victim of an accident only shows very little empathy instead of a desire to reflect on what actually happened.
As mentioned, creating a situation in your mind so you can express how insensitive you can be is not something that should be done.
justasking
70 cm barrier. It's probably not a place meant to take pictures.
Thunderbird2
Where does it say she was taking a selfie?
I use my iPhone as a camera... and never take selfies - it's just more convenient than a 35mm DLSR hanging round your neck. This poor woman was taking a photo of a deer.
virusrex
Exactly, commenters here are just showing a complete lack of empathy to criticize and blame the victim of an accident, even if to do that they need to make up imaginary things that are not even included in the report. It is not so easy to criticize someone for slipping and falling thanks to quite insecure rails in the location, so they make the victim to be distracted, obsessed with social media, taking selfies, etc. to justify blaming her.
Quasar80
@jay
Scrolling Insta or Tiktok at that timing ? I mean they went out in car and they're apparently just stopping by for a couple of minutes, and she just spotted a deer, it's unlikely she was scrolling, she could be in the process of posting on it, or maybe taking a photo or video of the deer, or briefly replying to someone, but chilling and scrolling, really not likely here. Anyway that's quite unlucky to be fair.