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Man Falls Off Cliff And Dies While Looking At Cell Phone
A man who was apparently distracted by his cell phone fell off a cliff in San Diego and plummeted to his death on Christmas Day.
NBC San Diego reports that 33-year-old Joshua M. Burwell of Indiana fell 60 feet at Sunset Cliffs around 4:50 p.m. on Friday. "Witnesses stated seeing someone distracted by an electronic device and he just fell over the edge," San Diego Lifeguard Bill Bender told NBC. "(He) wasn't watching where he was walking, he was looking down at the device in his hands." According to ABC-10, Burwell was visiting San Diego, and had just hopped out of a car to catch the sunset when he fell.
Authorities say the details as to what Burwell was doing with the phone or electronic device are unclear, but according to NBC, a number of witnesses say they believe he might have been trying to take a selfie. Lifeguards have not yet found the device, which they believe could have been a camera or a phone.
Three witnesses rushed down to the cliffs after Burwell fell, authorities said, and attempted to administer CPR. One of those Good Samaritans, 13-year-old Thor Wilink, said he came out of his house nearby when he heard screams and someone yelling, "Help, please God, save me."
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"After that I heard 'does anyone have rope and a lapel', and I know because I go to Yosemite, so I grabbed that, went down to the cliffs, and started to untangle the rope," Wilink told NBC. Wilink also said he saw a woman helping two surfers perform CPR on the man.
After medics arrived, Burwell was declared dead at the scene.
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