Waterford City Fire Station has made a public appeal asking people to think before they attempt to capture horrific accidents on their mobile phones.
The plea, which the fire service made on their Facebook page on Wednesday, came after a fatal road accident claimed the life of a two-year-old child on Tuesday morning.
Toddler Daenerys Crosbie was killed after the pram she was resting in rolled in front of a truck on Manor Street in the city centre.
On the Facebook post, the fire service labelled the actions of some "ghoulish, thoughtless and extremely distasteful", describing how a few bystanders reached for their phones to take videos and images of the scene.
The post in full reads:
"We walk a straight line on this page, trying not to criticise or condemn but following yesterday's tragedy in Manor Street it's time to weigh in on this.
"The crew at the scene were astounded by the number of people trying to capture the incident on their phones. This has been an ongoing trend for a number of years now, never better illustrated than at an RTA not too long ago where a man (In his thirties, not a teenager) crept up, phone poised and recording, to within ten feet or so of a car where we were trying to extricate the driver while the ambulance crew were treating him. The driver died en route to hospital.
"Why do people do this? It's ghoulish, thoughtless and extremely distasteful. We could fill this page with photos of the injured and dead that we see. But we don't.
"Sometimes it's enough to know that horrible things happen without having to see them. Most obviously there's the matter of respect for the dignity of the people involved and the desire of paramount importance to not add to the grief and anguish felt by their families and friends.
"So if you know somebody who considers this kind of thing alright ask them to think about it just a little more."
Gardaí have appealed for witnesses of the fatal incident in Waterford to get in contact.