"Aaaiiieee! We are undone!"A fourth youth managed to jump to safety before the accident in Panipat city in the northern state of Haryana, a police officer told AFP Wednesday.
"Whoa That was a close one!"
“The victims were busy taking selfies and when they saw a train approaching they jumped to a second track without realizing another train was coming on that,” M. S. Dabas told AFP.
"The train! The train!"
"The other train! [CRUSH!]"
The group had come to Panipat to attend a wedding. Two of those killed were 19 years old and the third was 18.
"Ayup. Struck down before they even reached their prime, they wuz!"
Experts warn that youngsters obsessed with social media are going to extreme lengths in order to post selfies seen as daring and risky.
That's why we have experts, to tell us things like that.
A study last year by researchers from the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences said 259 people across the world had died while taking selfies between 2011 and 2017.
Across the world? Over six years! An average of 43 and a sixth people a year, out of a world population of seven and a half billion... Shucks, that's one out of every 172,000,000 people, which is probably about the same odds as dying of lobster bites.
The highest number of incidents and selfie deaths were reported in India followed by Russia, United States, and Pakistan, the study said.
Odd. China's not on the list, despite their high population.
In 2017 three students were killed on a railway track in southern Karnataka state, while a man died in Odisha after an elephant wrapped its trunk around the man and crushed him to death as he tried to take a selfie with the animal.
Important safety tip there.
Last year Railways Minister Piyush Goyal took to Twitter to warn people against risking their life for the sake of photographs.
If you gotta be warned, the warning probably isn't gonna do any good.
"Here, hold my methyl-alcohol-adulturated illegal hooch"