Student takes grinning selfie with dead body, posts it on Instagram

School considering disciplinary action over cadaver photo

The selfie (blurred out here) has since been removed from Instagram (WHNT News)

Just when you thought 'selfies to be outraged about' had reached a peak with the whole funeral thing, a student in Alabama has provoked internet fury by posing for a photo with a cadaver in a university biology department.

The unnamed student is seen grinning broadly as the corpse is covered with a sheet in the photo, which was taken during a school trip to the University of Alabama designed to teach pupils about an anatomical donor programme.

Mobile phones were explicitly banned for the visit, but this didn't stop the student whipping hers out for the snap, which has since been removed from Instagram but was spotted by a classmate and reported to the school.

Clements High School principal Keith Hairrell refused to comment on whether the student has been suspended, but said the school is discussing an appropriate punishment.

A university spokesman described the situation as 'unacceptable' meanwhile, telling upi.com: "Our policies require discretion and respect in our human anatomy facilities.

"No phones are allowed, no photos are to be taken, and faces of cadavers are covered. A student was made explicitly aware of these policies and breached them. This kind of disrespect is unacceptable and very disappointing. We will review our processes to ensure this does not happen again."

Karen Tucker, the Limestone County School Board Director of Public Relations and Technology, added: "We are speaking to the University of Alabama Birmingham, they are understandably upset with this incident and we want to preserve our relationship with the university.

"Therefore we are speaking to them and wanting to know how we can mend this process and keep our relationship with them, and we are in the process of deciding on the discipline that will occur."

---

---

'Selfie' proved to be the buzz word of the past year, even being named the word of 2013 by Oxford Dictionaries.

David Cameron and Barack Obama got in on the trend too, posting one with Denmark's prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt at a memorial for Nelson Mandela.