Unintentional deaths from selfies have received limited exposure in emergency medicine literature; yet trauma remains the leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults, and most of those implicated in a selfie incident are in this demographic. Selfie-related injuries and deaths may be a relatively new phenomenon, but data suggest they are a public health hazard that is not going away. Emergency medicine practitioners may have a role to play in the primary and secondary prevention of selfie incidents, including delivering opportunistic behaviour change messaging to those who are at risk of being injured or killed in a selfie-related incident, particularly young (14-25 years) males. Emergency medicine specialists should be aware of the dangers of selfie-related incidents and understand their polytraumatic presentation.
Keywords: drowning; photograph; selfie; social media; trauma.
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