Tags:
Journalism of Courage
FRUSTRATED over his failure to get sponsors to enter his ‘push-up’ feat in the Guinness Book of World Records, a 19-year-old youth consumed poisonous berries and killed himself in Erode on Monday.
Sathishwaran, an engineering student in a Coimbatore college, a body builder and weightlifter, had wanted to perform 155 “back-of-the-hand push-ups” to set a new world record. He also wanted to achieve the ‘Hitler’ record for various kinds of push-ups within 45 minutes (the world record).
“Satheeshwaran was upset that he could not get sponsors for the record performance and also couldn’t get a date in May to perform before the Chief Minister,” Satheeshwaran’s uncle Krishnamoorthy said from Coimbatore.
On Monday, the youth went into a sugarcane farm nearby and consumed some poisonous seeds. But on beginning to feel sick, he went back and told relatives what he had done.
He was taken to a private hospital in Sathyamangalam and later to Coimbatore. But he died on the way. Satheeshwaran’s achievement of 153 back-of-the-hand push-ups in 54 seconds beating the existing world record of 133 push-ups in one minute had already been entered in the Limca Book of Records.
