Selfie-seeking Texas teenager survives fall off bridge, hopes near-death experience serves as warning

A teenager in Texas who was nearly killed while trying to snap the perfect selfie atop a bridge in Dallas has a simple message: No photo is worth it.

Triston Bailey was reportedly with a group of friends headed home from a Dallas Stars game on Nov. 12 when the group decided to pull over for a selfie on the Margaret McDermott Bridge along Interstate 30, hoping to get the perfect shot of the city's skyline behind them.

“I was going over the concrete barriers and they heard me exclaim. They thought I was joking and that I was trying to mess with them that I fell,” the 18-year-old told FOX4. “But then they said they looked over and, just like the movies, I'm just laid out there on the dirt.”

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Instead of getting a photo that garnered likes on Instagram, Bailey ended up in the emergency room at Methodist Medical Center in Dallas, where doctors said they were stunned his injuries weren't more severe.

Triston Bailey fell from the Margaret McDermott Bridge when trying to take a selfie with the Dallas skyline. (Google Street View)

“This is inexplicable,” Dr. Jospeh Darryl Amos, the chief of trauma at Methodist Medical Center, told FOX4. “He bruised both lungs. He had a collapse of the lung. He had multiple lacerations to his spleen, and he had a pelvic fracture.”

Doctors who treated the 18-year-old said his injuries and recovery were miraculous.

Triston Bailey was nearly killed when he fell from a bridge in Texas when trying to snap a selfie. (FOX4)

“One more turn or one more twist, it's amazing he didn't snap his neck,” Amos said. “It's amazing he's not a paraplegic or broke his back or he could've hit a stone in the middle of that field and fractured his skull and not been here. This is a constellation of miraculous little events that occurred.”

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The 18-year-old shared his story with FOX4 for the first time on Tuesday -- during his first visit to the bridge since November. Bailey is still undergoing physical therapy twice a week and his plans to join the Air Force are now on hold.

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While his phone survived the tumble from the bridge, Bailey told FOX4 he's being more cautious and thinking about safety instead of selfies

“If I see another person on I-30 about to take a picture, I just stop on the side like, ‘Hey, it's not a good idea,’” he said Tuesday.

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