An off-duty nurse who rushed to help a 21-year-old Brazilian woman after a fatal bungee jump says the victim was still alive in the moments after she plunged from a bridge.
Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas died on Saturday after falling from the disused 130-foot Skeleton Bridge in São Paulo state when she was reportedly sent off the platform without a safety rope attached.
Local media said the aspiring physical education teacher had requested an “airplane-style” jump, in which two instructors lifted her above their shoulders while she stretched out her arms. The maneuver was also captured in widely shared video footage.
The two operators accused of failing to secure the rope to her harness have been charged with homicide with eventual intent, a Brazilian legal classification used when a person is not alleged to have intended a killing but is considered to have acted with extreme recklessness that led to death.
So far, no company has publicly accepted responsibility for the failed jump, and reports suggest the men may have been working as an unauthorized group rather than under a formally recognized operator.
Shockingly, Rodrigues de Freitas did not die immediately after plunging more than 100 feet to the ground, Rayza Dias, the nurse who tried to save her, told Brazilian TV.
The nurse, identified in reports as Dias, first described how difficult it was to get to the injured young woman after the fall.
‘I scraped my whole hand because there’s a steep slope down there and only one rope for us to climb down,’ Dias told news show Domingo Espetacular on Sunday. ‘It was all covered in mud. I kept going down, down, we walked all the way.’
Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, 21, died on Saturday after rope jump operators forgot to attach her harness, causing her to plunge 130 feet from a bridge in Brazil
Rayza Dias, who rushed to Rodrigues de Freitas’s aid, said that the young woman was shockingly still alive immediately after the fall
Disturbing footage circulating on social media shows the moments just before Rodrigues de Freitas was launched from the bridge without a rope
Dias described how the victim was breathing heavily and still had a weak pulse when she tried to give her life-saving care.
She began to get emotional as she said, ‘I even talked to her. I have a habit of joking and saying, “Nobody dies on my shift.” And I told her, “Duda, nobody dies on my shift.” Even though I wasn’t on my shift there.’
Duda is a common affectionate or informal nickname in Portuguese for women named Eduarda or men named Eduardo or Duarte.
Brazil’s military police told local media that two men fled from the scene in Limeira shortly after realizing their fatal mistake.
The men were soon located in a wooded area nearby by a helicopter, and the Sao Paulo Public Security Secretariat then confirmed that six people were taken in for questioning.
Three men who were taken into custody were charged with homicide with eventual intent.
The suspects claimed there was a ‘blackout’ during set up and they ‘can’t remember’ where or when the failure in attaching the rope occurred or who should have put them on in.
The trio in custody have been identified locally as Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, and Vitor de Freitas Goncalves, 27.
The drop from the 130-foot Skeleton Bridge in Limeira, Sao Paulo, in a post from Rodrigues de Freitas’s own Instagram account
Six people were arrested after the two who fled into a wooded area were located by helicopter. Three of those arrested at the scene were charged with homicide with implied malice
There has been at least one other fatal accident at the Skeleton Bridge. In 2024, a female cyclist who was riding across with friends lost control and plunged over the side to her death.
Because the structure is abandoned, access, maintenance and management fall under the responsibility of the Brazilian federal government.
Following the cyclist’s death, the federal government ordered the municipality of Limeira to block access and install danger signs.
The municipality complied with the order, but the blocked entrance was quickly bypassed, and local adventure sports operators lobbied the Limeira City Council to keep the bridge open for commercial purposes.
After Rodrigues de Freitas’s fatal fall over the weekend, Limeira’s City Hall reiterated that the federal government is responsible for regulating the bridge and said it had warned federal authorities about the dangers posed by the abandoned infrastructure.
The city also said it would take legal action against the Brazilian government for failing to monitor and regulate access to the old railway.
Limeira’s mayor, Murilo Felix, said: ‘In addition to the circumstances that led to the young woman’s death, it is necessary to establish who is responsible for the lack of access control to a federal area which, for years, has posed known risks and is still without the necessary safety measures.
‘We have been calling for action for months to ensure that the Federal Government assumes its responsibility. Unfortunately, its failure to act has just resulted in yet another tragedy in Limeira.’
After a previous fatal accident at the bridge in 2024, the Brazilian government ordered danger signs to be put up in the area. Rodrigues de Freitas posted one of those signs on her Instagram
Rodrigues to Freitas was an aspiring physical education teacher. She was buried in Sao Paulo on Sunday
Although the blocked entrance to the bridge was quickly bypassed after it was set up, the warning signs remained. Rodrigues de Freitas even posted a chilling photo of one of the signs to her Instagram story shortly before her fall.
The sign depicted a skull and crossbones and said: ‘Danger. Risk of death.’
Rodrigues de Freitas was buried in Sao Paulo on Sunday, with her mother speaking out in an overnight social media post.
Hours after her daughter’s funeral, she said, ‘That damned rope took you away from me forever.
‘My beloved daughter, you are gone, and all that remains here is pain and longing. I will love you forever.’
