An American woman who sent a joke photo of her near-death experience at the Grand Canyon to scare her mother has become a viral hit.

Samantha Busch got her boyfriend to snap a picture of her apparently about to slip from the edge of a cliff in the canyon.

She then posted the photo to Reddit, with the caption: "Mom was worried about my trip to the Grand Canyon, I sent her this picture."

But she was in fact standing safely on a ledge out of shot. Busch says she was trying to teach her over-protective mother a lesson.

"For five days up to when we left, my mom had warned me about falling off the cliff or being blown off," she told ABC News.

"So when while I was there, I found a cool little spot that I could sneak into, and lean back and look like I am falling off, and I thought that would be a great picture to send back home to my parents."

- © Fairfax NZ News

Comments