CHENNAI: It was intended to impress his friends on social media, but a birthday stunt, involving an attempt to take selfie on top of a train, proved serious for an 18-year old boy on Saturday. He suffered electric shock and is now undergoing treatment at the burns unit in Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.
The incident occurred around 5 PM at Tambaram railway station. According to Government Railway Police (GRP) at Tambaram, the boy identified as M Dileepan was celebrating his birthday with a few friends.
They were playing and that was when Dileepan wanted to climb the coach and take a selfie. “He managed to reach the top, but suffered electric shock and fell to the ground in the impact,” a GRP officer said, adding that a few railway staff nearby had reportedly tried to force Dileepan to climb down.
The officer said Dileepan suffered around 50 per cent burns and was first taken to a local hospital by friends, before being referred to KMC Hospital. The victim is a son of a railway employee, Marimuthu, working in the engineering department. The family had been living in the railway colony at East Tambaram.
With his friends stayed on the ground, the boy had intended to take a self-portrait atop the train and post it on his Facebook profile. “He might have assumed that since the train, parked near the goods loading and unloading area, was stationary, no power would be passing through the line above. However, it was not so," the officer said.