For many of us, the mobile phone has become an indispensable tool in everyday life . We spend a lot of time looking at messages, chatting with friends or co-workers or killing time with one of the many addictive games that fill the app stores. But to the point of dying for him? That is what has happened in the United States. A woman decided to rescue her mobile from the flames in her house after leaving the property. A story that seems to be taken from a chapter on "1,000 ways to die" but which once again highlights the immense dependence we have developed on smartphones.
The sad protagonist of this story is Wendy Rybolt , a middle-aged woman from the town of Bartonville in Illinois. During the early hours of tonight (the morning in Spain) his house suffered a fire from which he was able to leave with his daughter. But once outside, the woman realized that she had left her smartphone inside the building . Without being aware of the danger she was in (or perhaps she was), she decided that it was not too late to go back into the house and rescue the phone. A decision that proved fatal, as the smoke inside the house made him lose consciousness and by the time the firefighters arrived it was impossible to revive the victim.
Leaving aside the terrible decision of Wendy Rybolt, the problem in this case was the presence of a large amount of carbon dioxide , a gas that can cause death in just a few minutes and that acts in many cases without even the victim realizes the danger posed. A case that once again shows the enormous importance that smartphones have reached in our lives, many times even beyond what is reasonable. And sometimes, even with acts that at first glance can be considered a real madness.
Hace pocas semanas, contábamos la noticia de dos personas que también murieron por tratar de rescatar un móvil. En este caso, el smartphone de una mujer cayó en una letrina y terminó en una fosa séptica. Uno a uno, los miembros de la familia entraron en la fosa y perdieron el conocimiento por los terribles olores. Al final, tanto el marido de la mujer como su madre perdieron la vida y otras tres personas tuvieron que ser hospitalizados. Una verdadera tragedia que se replica cada cierto tiempo en distintas partes del mundo.
We are all threatened by this dependence, although our first reaction may be to detach ourselves from these sad protagonists . But when the time comes, the awareness of the danger can evaporate before the importance that the mobile has acquired. It helps to stop from time to time and remember that smartphones, useful as they may be, are nothing more than electronic gadgets that can be easily replaced. Not like the lives of these tragic protagonists whose deaths could easily have been avoided.