Rayza Dias was not on duty that Saturday. But when she heard the impact and saw the chaos at the foot of Skeleton Bridge in Limeira, Brazil, she ran down the uneven ground until she reached Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, 21. She found her on the ground with a weak pulse and breathing. “I told her that no one died on my shift”, Dias told the Brazilian program Domingo Espetacular.
What no one yet understood was how it had happened. The company Entre Cordas organized the jump from 40 meters high. Maria Eduarda had requested the launch in “airplane style”: two instructors lifted her onto their shoulders and threw her into the void. The safety rope was never attached to her harness. Seconds before she fell, witnesses on the bridge shouted “The rope, the rope!”. It was already too late. 😰
When the paramedics arrived, they declared her dead: multiple fractures throughout her body. Six men were arrested, two of them fled the scene. The identified operators —Maicon Fernandes Cintra (42), Luis Felipe Egoroff (32) and Vitor de Freitas Gonçalves (27)— claim to have had a “blackout” and not remember who failed to secure the rope. The three face charges of homicide with eventual intent. It is the second fatal accident on that same bridge in two years.