A terrified woman had an incredible escape by backing out of the bungee jump that moments later saw a Brazilian student plunging to her death without a cord, one of the instructors revealed.
The jumping instructor, who was only identified as Gustavo, said he was putting the jumping equipment on his customers in São Paulo when one of them got too scared to make the leap, according to TV Record.
“The girl got scared and gave up,” Gustavo told the local outlet, with the instructor then moving on to equip 21-year-old student Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas.
Gustavo said his back was turned to work on another customer when his co-worker lifted Rodrigues de Freitas up over their heads and tossed her off the 130-foot abandoned railway span known as “Skeleton Bridge” — without first attaching her bungee cord.
Harrowing video shows the three men moving the young woman on a plank and tossing her off, looking down nonchalantly before horrified onlookers, including Rodrigues de Freitas’ fiancé, yelled at them that there was no rope attached.
“What I heard was, ‘Oh my God, the girl!’” Gustavo recalled. “It’s normal for someone to scream when they jump, and for the people around to scream along.
“I heard screams, and when I turned around [to face the platform], it had already happened,” he added.
A woman who identified herself as a nurse asked for help to reach Rodrigues de Freitas, Gustavo said, but it was too late.
Six people were taken into custody and questioned over the incident, with police charging Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, Vitor de Freitas Goncalves, 27, and Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, with homicide, O Globo reported.
Two of the men fled the scene when they realized what they had done, with authorities deploying a military helicopter to track them down in the nearby woods, according to the local outlet.
Gustavo said that the procedure for the “airplane” style jump that Rodrigues de Freitas underwent requires at least three people to make sure the stunt is safely performed.
Because of the nature of the stunt, he couldn’t say who exactly would have been responsible to double check that Rodrigues de Freitas was safely tethered to the bridge before being tossed.
Marco Antonio Junior, the president of the Brazilian Rope Jump and Human Pendulum Association (ABRJH), said the instructors failed to properly conduct the stunt.
“The jump didn’t follow any standard procedure. One instructor has to attach the rope to the client, and the other instructor checks if the rope is attached correctly. That’s the double check. In any adventure activity you do in the world, that’s the first rule,” he told O Globo.
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