U.K. man falls to his death while scaling bridge for social media content

A 26-year-old British man has died after he fell from one of Spain‘s tallest bridges while creating content for his social media pages.

The man was scaling the bridge, the highest cable-stayed structure in the country, on Sunday in Talavera de la Reina, a city situated approximately 110 kilometres southwest of Madrid.

He was climbing the Castilla-La Mancha bridge alongside another content creator, 24, when he fell to his death, local authorities confirmed.

Neither man has been identified.

Macarena Muñoz, the city’s councillor for citizen security, said in a statement that climbing the 192-metre-high bridge is “totally prohibited” and something they have “reiterated on many occasions cannot be done under any circumstances.”

“As we have been able to find out, they had come to Talavera to climb the bridge and create content for social networks, which has resulted in this unfortunate and sad outcome,” the message from Muñoz added.

A police spokesperson, per Metro UK, said the man “was about 40 to 50 metres up, around a quarter of the total height of the bridge, when he fell.”

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“The reason he fell is not clear and will be investigated by a local court,” they added, confirming neither man was wearing harnesses or other protection during their climb.

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Local media reports that climbers and social media creators have long been drawn to the bridge, which opened in 2011, despite the ban and many warnings.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time a person has died while going to lengths to capture the perfect selfie or photograph for their social media followers.

In 2021, an influencer died while attempting to take a selfie in front of a waterfall in Hong Kong’s Ha Pak Lai park. She lost her footing and plunged into the falls’ pool below.

And in 2020, a 31-year-old woman from Kazakhstan died after falling off a high cliff while posing for a photograph in Turkey while celebrating the end of a COVID-19 lockdown.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) released study findings in 2018 that showed 259 selfie-related deaths were reported worldwide that year, most of which were attributed to “risky” behaviour.