Nurse Reveals Bungee Jumper Who Plunged Without Safety Cord Was Still Alive

The 21-year-old woman who was killed after being thrown off a bridge without her bungee cord attached was reportedly found alive after a 131-foot fall. 

A bystander who is a nurse rushed to Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas after workers at Skeleton Bridge in Brazil made a catastrophic error, according to the New York Post. The nurse, Rayza Dias, said she had to climb down a steep, muddy slope to reach Rodrigues de Freitas, but when she did, she detected a weak pulse.

“I even talked to her,” Dias said. “I have a habit of joking and saying, ‘Nobody dies on my shift,’ even though I wasn’t on my shift there.” 

Dias said reaching Rodrigues de Freitas was a challenge in itself. “I scraped my whole hand because there’s a steep slope down there and only one rope for us to climb down,” she said. 

Although Dias said Rodrigues de Freitas was still alive when she reached her, medical professionals pronounced Rodrigues de Freitas dead shortly after arriving on the scene.

The odds of surviving a fall from 131 feet are extremely low, but a study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine suggests that what a person lands on — and how they land — can influence their chances of survival. The study examined a 28-year-old rock climber who survived an “unsurvivable” injury after falling 300 feet onto a solid rock surface, about 170 feet further than Rodrigues de Freitas fell. 

According to the report, the climber initially fell about 200 feet onto a flat rock surface, then fell a further 100 feet, which slowed and redirected her descent. Although she suffered devastating injuries to her legs, pelvis, and spine, her body position helped her avoid immediately fatal trauma to the head, brain, and heart because her lower body absorbed much of the impact. The report concluded that body positioning at the time of impact can play a crucial role in survivability.

Officials have not publicly disclosed Rodrigues de Freitas’ body position at the time of impact.

Three bungee operators were arrested at the scene. Two of the three fled the scene but were later tracked down in the woods by a military helicopter. Feliciano Egoroff, one of the bungee jump operators charged in Rodrigues de Freitas’ death, was seen in a resurfaced video from 2023 running off the bridge with a young child hugging him. Egoroff appeared to be attached to a safety rope while the child clung to him, but a chorus of social media users called the stunt irresponsible and called for an end to “these bizarre practices!” 

Brazilian police official Andrea Dantas Levy said the team wasn’t licensed: “It was a team there that wasn’t regulated; they didn’t even have authorization to be there. They ended up organizing this event, and this fatality happened today, in my perception, due to a failure to verify and supervise the placement of the rope on the victim’s jump.”