Woman So Absorbed in Using Her Phone She Failed To Notice Her Daughter Fall Onto Train Tracks

I‘ve always said it, and I’ll say it again: smartphones will kill people one day.

No, I’m not referring to those mini explosions in your pocket (I’m looking at you Samsung). Rather, I’m talking about Smartphone-calypse victims:

Smartphone zombies.

Looking down at their phones wherever they walk, these special ‘zombies’ seem to lose all awareness of their surroundings. Heck, there’s even an entire video dedicated to it. Here, take a look.

But while it might appear funny and all, reality’s quite a different thing, for these zombies could actually get hurt.

Just check this out for an example: a mother was so embroiled in using her phone, that a life was nearly lost. And to make it worse, this particular zombie wasn’t endangering her own life.

She was endangering her own daughter’s life.

What happened?

The incident occurred on 16 October in the province of Beijing, China.

According to Oriental Daily, a mother was walking alongside her daughter on the train platform when the transportation vehicle was approaching the station. I feel it pertinent to express that at this point, the mother was reportedly so engrossed in scrolling through her phone that she paid little to no attention to her daughter.

As the mother boarded the coach, she suddenly heard a cry for help. And it wasn’t just anyone’s.

It was her daughter’s.

As it turns out, the young one had fallen onto the track via the small empty space between the train and platform, and the adult was so distracted that she didn’t notice at all.

Realising that her daughter’s life was in grave danger, the mother quickly stretched her arm down the hole to retrieve the young girl. But it was to no avail, despite her best efforts.

Just when things were looking bleak, the staff at the station (and even members of the public) stepped in to lend a helping hand, and the girl was successfully retrieved.

Thereafter, the girl was sent to a hospital where it was determined that except for a slight injury to the head, she wasn’t in any life-threatening condition.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time something like this happened. A year ago, this video surfaced on video-sharing site YouTube.

However, unlike the incident in question, the adult in this one was a lot more ‘sharp’.

Probably cos she wasn’t using a smartphone. Hmmm…

Enraged

While the girl was fine, the Internet certainly wasn’t. The incident would later go on to garner virality on social media, though it has to be said that it wasn’t exactly positive feedback.

“Even when the child fell on the track, she still didn’t let go of the phone in her hand,” a netizen said.

“Any woman can give birth, but not all can be a good mother,” another social media user said.

And I gotta say; the second one really hurts. But then again the truth hurts, so I guess she just gotta deal with it. Like everyone does.

Moral of the story

While it’s fine to play with your smartphone…

It’s not fine to play with it all the time.

And that’s especially so when you have a child tagging alongside you, counting on you to protect them.

So hop off that ‘smartphone zombie’ trend, before it gets too late.