Published 07.00
“Who is the madman who let me jump off a bridge?” wrote 21-year-old Maria jokingly on Instagram.
Then she bungee jumped.
But the rope didn’t stick.
It would be an adventure for student Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, 21.
Instead, she fell 40 meters to her death.
The nightmarish incident has been captured in a clip that has shaken Brazil.
It shows the moment where the young woman was thrown from the “Skeleton Bridge” in the city of Limeira, in the state of Sao Paulo, on Saturday.
Two men carried her to the edge and threw her against the abyss. But the second she left the jumping platform, desperate screams are heard.
“The rope,” someone shouts.
“Hey, the rope,” shouts another.
According to the Brazilian military police, a witness stated that employees of the company responsible for the activity must have forgotten to fasten the rope before the jump was carried out, from a height of about 40 meters, writes Globe.
The emergency services and the mobile emergency medical service were called to the scene, but Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freita’s life could not be saved.
Immediately after the accident, however, she was still alive, says nurse Rayza Dias for the Brazilian television channel Domingo Espetacular.
Dias was not on duty, but was at the scene and immediately tried to get down to the foot of the bridge.
– It’s a steep slope down there and there was only one rope for us to climb down. Everything was covered in mud. I kept going down, down, we went down all the way, she says.
Arrested after escape attempt
She found the 21-year-old.
– I even talked to her. I have a habit of joking and saying that “no one dies on my shift”. And I told her that too. Even though I wasn’t on my shift.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.
Six people were arrested after the incident, three of whom are still in custody.
According to the police, two men fled shortly after the accident but could later be found in a wooded area with the help of a police helicopter, writes Globo.
Not the first death
“That cursed rope took you from me forever,” Maria’s mother Valdenia Rodrigues wrote in a post on Instagram on Sunday, according to Brazilian newspaper Estado.
According to Murilo Felix, mayor of Limeira, the company that organizes the jump “has been a problem for years”. It must now be investigated who is responsible for the control of the area, which is “known for its risks”,
“For months we have been demanding action for the federal government to take responsibility. Unfortunately, the inaction has now led to another tragedy in Limeira,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
In April 2025, a 39-year-old cyclist died in a fall at the same location.
