10 People Who Copied Movies In Disturbing Ways

6. Blue Crush's Underwater Training Scene Was Fatally Imitated By A Young Boy

Blue Crush movie poster
Universal Pictures

Blue Crush is a fairly by-the-numbers sports movie centred on Ann Marie, a young woman who strives to become a professional surfer. As is the case with the vast majority of sports movies out there, it also features numerous training scenes where Ann Marie and her friends catch some waves and hone their surfing skills.

In one of these scenes, Ann Marie takes things up a notch by carrying a heavy rock across the ocean floor in an effort to improve her endurance. It's a great moment in the story, but sadly, a young boy who attempted to mimic this feat in real life ended up paying for it with his life.

In 2003, 13-year-old Anthony Michael Alfonsin tried to copy the scene from Blue Crush, but in a slightly different way. While playing with his friends, he attempted to swim across a 15-foot deep pond with a heavy chain wrapped around his waist, which soon caused him to be dragged underneath the water, where he drowned.

Nearby parents and rescue workers did try to save Anthony, but it all happened so fast that they simply couldn't get there in time.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!