Social Media Users Fall For The ‘Girl Hit With Shovel’ Hoax
Miranda Fugate, better known as the girl that got hit with the shovel, did not die. Regardless of social media news feed reports, Miranda will live to fight another day. The original report of her death came via an article on Huzlers.com. Huzlers is a self-described mix of real and fake news aimed at keeping readers shocked and unsure, something along the lines of a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for the unsuspecting sharers of the world wide web. The report claimed that the girl, dubbed ‘Shovel Girl’ by the internet spectators, died suddenly while watching television as a result of being hit with a shovel.
“Miranda Fugate died of serious head injuries after being hit with a shovel in the head by an old friend of hers named Emily Powers,” the satire article reported. “At first, it only seemed like a minor head injury as Miranda also temporarily lost one ear’s hearing.” The report claimed that Miranda died, poetically, while watching Mean Girls later that day.
That report, and the endless social media reports spawned from it were inaccurate though. The public should know that the photographs of the supposed death scene were actually swiped from a two-year-old news report. The girl hit with the shovel was not seriously injured and she later even appeared in another video. The girl took to twitter after learning the rumor that she had died from injuries caused by being hit with a shovel. Miranda wrote, “I’M THE GIRL that got hit in the head with the shovel lol … I’m not dead.. Idk why there’s rumors saying I am.”
Huffington Post reported, the original video was a planned altercation, which led the public to wonder if the fight was staged. Thursday, WDTN News reported that the fight itself is believed to have been authentic. That report quoted the girl who threw the shovel as saying, “I’ve been bullied since third or fourth grade because of acne problems. I’ve had enough of it. I finally stood up for myself,” the girl said.
The Miami County Sheriff’s Office told WDTN News that both girls are OK, but they are investigating the validity of the fight. According to WDTN News, the police will present their investigation to the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office next week. Sheriff’s Major Steve Lord said, “When we have these types of videos, we need to explore to make sure that they’re authentic and not staged, as far as an investigation.” The kid who filmed the video of the girl fight ending with a shovel to the head told Dayton News that the video itself is not a hoax. He claims the fight was not staged.
The original video of the girl being hit with a shovel, now found on Huffington post, was taken down from YouTube, but not before it was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
