World

Indian-couple, who fell to death, warned others of dangerous selfies

Written by

Shalini Ojha

Twitter

Last updated on Oct 31, 2018, 08:24 pm

Indian-couple Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy, who died after falling 800 feet in California's Yosemite National Park last week, warned people of dangers of 'doing it for gram'. The travel-junkie couple documented their trips in the US and other places on Instagram and spoke about dangers of clicking selfies at high-risk spots. Quite ironical! They had over 18,000 Instagram followers. Here's more on this.

In this article

• Backstory: Couple's love for travel turned into tragedy
• Is life worth a photo, couple wrote on Instagram
• In another post, they warned daredevilry could lead to death
• It is not worth it
• Another tourist tells she was standing too close to edge

What happened

Backstory: Couple's love for travel turned into tragedy

The couple's love for travel met with tragedy after they fell off the steep cliff from Taft Point in California. A media report claims the couple was taking a selfie when the mishap happened. Notably, there is no ledge to protect visitors from the edge at the popular viewpoint. Park Rangers used technical climbing and rappelling techniques for the recovery operation.

Posts

Is life worth a photo, couple wrote on Instagram

In several of their posts, Viswanath and Moorthy wrote about being cautious. In a post dated March 28, Moorthy wrote, "A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL??? Is our life just worth one photo?" This was repeated in another post.

Quote

In another post, they warned daredevilry could lead to death

In yet another picture, taken at Grand Canyon the couple reiterated it. "Please be careful standing at the edge of canyons/mountains/high rise buildings. The wind gusts are extremely dangerous and your adrenaline rage is not worth your life," the November 16 post read.

Instagram Post

It is not worth it

Sooo tis’ no secret that I have always admired and aroused by women who dare to stand out in the crowd just by being themselves🌟You know the passionate ones🤘who “do their thing” no matter what curve balls the society throws at them, the driven ones👊who venture on their wildest dreams,and whether they are rule makers or rule breakers, what they all have in common is, they stand darn true to themselves and their ideals🦄and don’t act anything less than what they are, just for the society to “accept” them.😏 ... And Wonder Woman(fictitious or not, we will come to that soon) is exactly all that and more! She is strong (hell yes!) yet sensitive.⚡️She is badass but she doubted her strength and even gets yelled at for that.⚡️She is stubborn but she is also kind.⚡️Do you see, there is a Wonder Woman👩⚔️in each and every one of you.Just let her shine through ✨✨✨and you will be unstoppable.🤘 ... Sooo ladies, sparkling in the #pinkpositivelight 💕✨ let’s do this for the 🦋onder 🦋oman inside us. Tell me your strengths that you are proud of.🤘Not the others, but what do YOU love the most about yourself?😇And I can tell you this my Amazons,⚔️👩once you believe in the spark ⚡️which makes you “you”, nothing can stop you from lassoing your way to be a Sassy, Strong, Ass-kicking Wonder Woman.🤘So c’mon, together let us pop, fizz and clink🥂to all the Wonder Women out there and celebrate their quirks and strengths.🎇 ... PS-For the “Super Man” reading this post, it would be great if you could share with us about the Wonder Woman🤘in your life. I can’t promise if Vishnu will dress up for a post like this for the men but we’ll see 😉 ... PPS – Please be careful standing at the edge of canyons/mountains/high rise buildings. The wind gusts are extremely dangerous☠️ and your adrenaline rage is not worth your life. We waited quite a bit and made sure of this. • • • #dametraveler #ladiesgoneglobal #girlsborntotravel #wearetravelgirls #iamtb #myfavtourlina #sheisnotlost #femmetravel #citizenfemme #sheexplores #travelista #traveltales #thediscoverer #travelust #dreamscape #instagramaz #visitarizona #timeoutsociety #inlovewiththisplace #dametravelerconnection #sidewalkerdaily #travelinladies

A post shared by holidaysandhappilyeverafters on Nov 16, 2017 at 5:48am PST

Details

Another tourist tells she was standing too close to edge

After the couple's identity was revealed, Sean Matteson, a tourist, said Moorthy was seen in two of their selfies. He said Moorthy made her uncomfortable as he felt she was standing too close to the edge. Park spokesman Jamie Richards said, "Yosemite is a wild and scenic place. If you are not paying attention to your footing, it is very easy to have a slip and fall".