CCTV Captures Man's Very Relatable Reaction to Tripping and Dropping Food

It was American writer William Arthur Ward who once famously said: "To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity."

Ward may not have lived to see the days of social media but his words continue to ring true as this recent example attests.

When the man behind the Twitter account D9mani recently suffered an unfortunate fall while carrying his dinner up a flight of stairs, he too was able to see the funny side.

So much so, in fact, that he ended up sharing CCTV footage capturing the slapstick moment, along with his enraged reaction, online.

Posting the clip to Twitter, he explained his reason for sharing the video, writing simply "you guys deserve laughter too," alongside a crying with laughter emoji face.

In the clip, the man can be seen dashing up a flight of stairs with a meal in a disposable food container.

As he reaches the top of the steps, however, he suddenly stumbles and falls, sending his meal sliding across the floor in front of him, with several food items spilling out in the process.

While the true extent of the damage done to his meal is not visible, his subsequent reaction suggests it is significant, with the man shown repeatedly bashing against the wall near to the handrail in evident frustration.

He did, at least, find some solace on social media with the resulting video viewed an impressive 2.9 million times.

More importantly, he found plenty who empathized with him, having evidently gone through similar experiences themselves.

"Aw man my heart broke watching this bc I know the feeling," RachelMays wrote. "Feel yo pain bro," carletia7sav commented. JCCarter0820 added: "I almost sent Buddy some money. I felt that pain."

For some, the footage was almost too painful to even watch. "They need to add a trigger warning before this," trademark0013 said.

In a follow-up video, the original poster D9mani shared another CCTV clip of himself continuing to appear frustrated as he walked down the corridor, having evidently discarded the food.

Yet despite the calamity of the situation, some felt he should have simply scooped the food off the floor and carried on.

"Boy if u don't pick the box up!" kdts876_ commented. "Most of it still inside."

Bwill628 agreed, writing: "Why he leave it there though?"

In both instances, fellow Twitter users must have been hoping the original poster would exercise something known as the "five-second rule."

According to this "rule" food that is spilled on a surface is still safe to eat if you pick it up within five seconds because the microorganisms that exist on the said surface will not have time to transfer onto the food.

While the idea sounds good in practice, it falls flat in scientific terms.

In fact, a study by Rutgers University found in some instances the transfer of bacteria can begin in less than a second while food containing high levels of moisture was prone to be contaminated quicker.

Certain services like tiles, stainless steel and wood also had a much high transfer rate than carpet. That suggests that, in this instance, as heartbreaking as it may have been, D9mani was right to throw his meal away.

Newsweek has contacted D9mani for comment.

CCTV has played a key role in several notable viral stories over the past few months. In one instance, security cameras were perfectly positioned to capture the dramatic moment a man managed to catch a dog after it jumped from a first-storey window of a bar in the U.K.

In another instance, CCTV helped ward of a strange man who was spotted lurking outside a woman's home in the U.S.