The Italian press was in an uproar after an unidentified young man took a selfie posing in front of a train accident victim. He appeared to be holding up his fingers in a “V” for victory sign.
He was captured taking the selfie by a news photographer on the scene.
The injured woman, a Canadian visiting the country, was struck by a train May 26 at the Piacenza station near Milan in northern Italy after she exited the wrong door, Canada’s Global News reported. One of her legs was amputated after she was rushed to a hospital.
Police confronted the selfie-snapping man on the scene as paramedics aided the woman and ordered him to delete the photo.
The photo of the selfie man was splashed across Italian publications, many of which responded with outraged commentaries.
La Stampa attacked the “cancer that corrodes the internet,” and a radio news commentator said the sickening situation was a sign that the human race is “galloping toward extinction,” the BBC reported.
Giorgio Lambri, the news photographer who captured the scene, said in a Facebook post: “We have completely lost our sense of ethics.”
He told the Global News: “I have seen many crimes and terrifying scenes, but I [was] not ready to [see] this.” He said the most disturbing aspect of the scene was that the man didn’t understand how “bad his behavior” was.
Lambri wrote about witnessing the scene in the Piacenza newspaper Liberta on Sunday. The headline on the article translated to: “The barbarism you don’t expect: The selfie in front of a tragedy.” He noted: “Houston, we have a problem.”
Lambri told the Global News that he has also been criticized for taking a photo of the situation, but he said that it’s his job to record the news.
