Well, a kid who I went to secondary school with, and I knew rather well at the time, just passed away the other day. It's on most national UK news websites. He was only 17.
It's a tragic tale that, unfortunately, nobody will ever learn from. He was in my class when we started secondary school and we were actually cool for that first year, but we drifted apart as he gravitated towards certain circles, while I had other priorities. About a year later, he told me that he'd spend his weekends with friends shoplifting and getting kicked out of various malls. I spent my weekends alone at home, not doing very much. When it came to school work, I always worked hard while he never really made an effort, and by the end of school I'm pretty sure he'd failed all his GCSEs. The last time I saw him was about a year ago, when I was in the town centre with my brother doing Xmas shopping. He spotted me and said hi. I asked him which sixth form he was going to, and he told me that he just didn't bother signing up to any and hoped that the government wouldn't hit him with a heavy fine. He had no job, no job prospects, no plans to get a job or train for work, nor any alternatives like the Army.
In school he started doing "parkour" (jumping around on top of buildings) and got into trouble with the school and police after he posted a video on youtube of himself breaking into the school and performing stunts on the rooftops. He'd obviously taken it further, as his death has just revealed. Apparently he spent last year travelling the world with his friends, presumably using his rich musician father's money, and filming videos of themselves doing extremely deadly stunts, such as leaping between skyscrapers in Hong Kong, and climbing on top of moving trains in Paris. The news claims this was a "career," yet his group's youtube channel only has a couple thousand subscribers. He had no future, due to his poor life choices. Now, unfortunately, he literally has no future.
He died when he was leaning out of a moving train in Paris to take a photo and his head hit a sign.
Part of me is sad, for the tragic downfall of a nice kid ending in death at the age of 17. Yet it reinforced the old adage: "Play dumb games, win dumb prizes." Unlike a young cancer sufferer, his death was purely a result of personal choices. It really shows how life isn't to be wasted, seeing as his life is over while I'm essentially planning mine now. Really shocks the nihilism out of you, seeing somebody you knew die young.
Either way, RIP
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Tributes to teen Brit freerunner Nye Frankie Newman killed on Paris metro after 'leaning out of carriage to take a photo and hitting a sign'