Lewis Stevenson’s suicidal stunt

IN affirmation of the local proverb that says that some people attain satiety, only to look for something to burst their stomach, British influencer Lewis Stevenson ended his odyssey in Spain recently. The 26-year-old, who plunged to his death from Spain’s highest bridge as he tried to snap daredevil Instagram post from a 630ft landmark, had no reason at all to take the plunge, as such stunts on the Castilla La Mancha bridge are strictly forbidden, and the law is public knowledge. Actually, Lewis did not  only take a daring, foolhardy step, he did so using no safety equipment whatsoever, and on a Sunday morning to boot. He had resolutely ignored his family’s desperate pleas to call off the risky climb.  Before his tragic demise, Lewis had shared many photos of his climbing stunts all over the world on social media for at least five years. Speaking from his home in Derby, his grandfather Clifford Stevenson, 70, told an interviewer: “We all tried to talk him out of it. We were always trying to talk him out of doing things but that was the way he was. He loved doing it, always went out there believing he’d be alright. He did what he did for his own pleasure. He did not get any money for it, he was an adventurer.”

According to his heartbroken girlfriend, Savannah Parker, Lewis had travelled out to Spain on Friday, October 11 and was due to return home on Monday, October 14. She said: “I thought he’d just be trying to get a sunrise picture. I thought he must have stuck his arm out to get a picture and fell, not that he passed out. On our last day, he persuaded me to go with him into an abandoned building and I went with him but I was so scared because I don’t climb or do anything like that.’I said to him, “I don’t know how you do this all the time”. I was so scared of making one wrong move and that being it but we did it.’I was eager to leave because it was abandoned for a reason – it was not safe.’He was always going off doing stuff. It was hard to keep up. He went to South America for eight months last year. It was what he loved to do.”

To be sure, individuals losing their lives while pulling dangerous stunts is nothing new. Henry Roland died in 1937 at the Ottway Fair in Greenville, Tennessee, after wind blew out his trapeze bar. Many people still remember the story of Jose Marco, who died in 1969 while filming an underwater sequence in the film “Shark.” Marco was mauled to death by one of the sharks, which had not been properly sedated.  There was Jack Tyree, who died in 1981 while filming The Sword and the Sorcerer. Tragedy struck as Tyree tried performing an 80-foot fall, fatally missing the airbag below. In 2000, Chris Lamon died in Toronto, Canada, while performing a stunt for the movie, Exit Wounds. While attempting a human cannonball stunt in 2011, English daredevil Matt Cranch fell to his death from a 40 foot height.  On September 13 this year, Paulina Verduzco Mendoza, of Gilroy, California, United States,  died when she fell out of a 2006 white Ford pick-up truck that was driving recklessly, doing ‘donuts’ in a parking lot.

It is indeed a pity that Lewis Stevenson inadvertently took his own life while attempting to “create content” for his social media followers. It is certainly worthy of note that while certain individuals succeeded in advancing the cause of societal progress and development by inventing gadgets that made life much easier than before, others chose the ridiculous path of entertaining people by putting their bodies through needless strain. While, in this part of the world, it is not fashionable to speak ill of the dead, it is also true that nothing prevents the living from learning from foolish deaths. In our view, engaging in dangerous stunts in order to create the so-called content for a social media-crazy populace is a terrible exercise. While the daredevils engaging in these stunts readily acquire social media approbation and fame and gain considerable financial leverage from their activities, their actions are patently dangerous and unworthy of emulation. By creating such stunts, they fire up the imaginations of morally fickle, immature members of society who may try replicating or even surpassing such stunts. In the case of Lewis Stevenson, what did he eventually gain by choosing to commit suicide on Spain’s tallest bridge, the Castilla La Mancha? Stevenson did not only break the law, he did so with fatal consequences, and it is certain that his fans and enablers are now already looking in another direction for their perverse entertainment.

We believe that people should be careful with their stunts. Why engage in such dangerous stunts just for social media fame? In a previous editorial, we deplored the increasing penchant by Nigerian youths to engage in dangerous stunts in the bid to get their names registered in the Guinness Book of Records, citing the case of a Nigerian known as Young C who embarked on a challenge to be buried alive in a coffin for 24 hours. In a video which went viral on social media, this individual said he had already spent over eight hours in the coffin and was already experiencing physical discomfort like excessive sweating but that he was bent on spending 24 hours in the coffin underground! As we noted, the Nigerian society should not condone or permit such dangerous and senseless stunts that could easily be construed as a suicide attempt by subterfuge. As we noted,  if anyone wants to be listed in the Guinness Book in order to feel accomplished, why not engage in reasonable, safe and socially productive attempts? Why take unreasonable and senseless risks in order to stand out, and to an end that is even less than honorable or profitable? What value can this thoughtless attempt bring to the society?

Our position remains unchanged. Society does not have to be too flippant. Death will come when it will, but no one needs to die like Lewis Stevenson. It is a terrible choice.

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