A Georgia couple’s wedding night ended in tragedy when a helicopter crash claimed the lives of the groom and the pilot. The newlywed bride, Jesni Fiji, was trapped for six agonizing hours beneath her husband’s lifeless body, surrounded by the wreckage.
Jesni, who miraculously escaped with only cuts and bruises, awoke Saturday morning to a nightmare. Disoriented and in shock, she found herself beneath her husband, Dave Fiji, who had not survived. The groom’s father, George Fiji, shared the heart-wrenching moment with Atlanta News First, recounting Jesni’s desperate cries of confusion and disbelief.
“She was crying on the phone, ‘What happened? What happened?'” George recalled, speaking from a metro Atlanta hospital where Jesni was recovering. “At first, I had no idea what she was talking about.”
The couple had been aboard a Robinson R66 helicopter, intended as a romantic sendoff to DeKalb-Peachtree Airport. The plan was to whisk the newlyweds to an Atlanta-area hotel following their wedding celebration. Tragically, the helicopter crashed in a wooded area of northern Georgia on Friday night, cutting their journey short.
Images from the scene captured the somber reality of the crash, where both the groom, Dave Fiji, and the pilot lost their lives. Jesni’s survival, while miraculous, was tempered by the heartbreaking realization of her husband’s death.
