An 18-year-old girl narrowly escaped death after launching herself from a bridge near Ferreiras, in Albufeira, and landing on railtracks in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
According to reports, she is just the latest victim of the “sick online game” that has purportedly been “linked to hundreds of deaths of teenagers in Russia” and which is now prompting police forces throughout Europe to send out warnings.
The Blue Whale ‘suicide game’ appears to be an online social media group set up to promote suicide.
The UK’s Sun reported this week that it is thought to have a group administrator who assigns daily tasks to members – including self harming, watching horror movies and waking up at unusual times – before leading them to the final fatal step.
Firemen called to the railtracks after a local resident heard the injured teen’s cries realised she had been self-harming, after cutting back her trousers as they tended to her injuries, explains national tabloid Correio da Manhã.
Much later, in Faro’s casualty department, the girl is understood to have “confessed” that she was playing the game “and could not take the pressure” – so decided to jump off the railway viaduct to perform the last part of the challenge “which is suicide”.
According to reports, the girl is now clinically ‘stable’ – though whether she will now be given psychiatric counselling is not explained.
CM stresses that the girl was only saved from much more serious injury by the fact that she cried out and alerted a nearby resident.
Said 20-year-old André Oliveira, her badly injured leg was on the tracks, and she may not have been able to move it in time for the passing of goods trains, “which pass at that time of night”.
As it was, Oliveira reached the girl by 2am, and immediately called rescue services.
“She had lots of injuries”, the young man told CM. “Principally to her face”.
The ‘self-harming’ appears to have been in the form of the word “Sim” (Yes) carved into the skin of the girl’s leg.
“The injuries were still fresh”, CM adds.
In UK, police and head teachers are alerting parents to the dangers of the Blue Whale challenge.
The Sun adds that “last year an alleged ringleader named as 21-year-old Philipp Budeiken was detained, and he has been charged with organising eight groups between 2013 and 2016 which promote suicide”.
But for now, the rest of the people powering the Blue Whale game have yet to be identified.
