A family day out turned into an unimaginable tragedy when a father’s bungee jump ended in disaster after the safety cord was reportedly too long, causing him to strike the ground during the fall.
Fabio Ezequiel de Moraes, a 36 year old father from Brazil, died after jumping from a bridge in SĂŁo Paulo state in 2016 while his wife, young son and other relatives watched from above.
Video from the scene captured Moraes smiling and shouting with excitement as he leaped headfirst from the 43 meter bridge. Moments later, the jump went catastrophically wrong.
Fabio Ezequiel de Moraes, a 36 year old father from Brazil, died after jumping from a bridge in SĂŁo Paulo state in 2016 while his wife, young son and other relatives watched from above.
Video from the scene captured Moraes smiling and shouting with excitement as he leaped headfirst from the 43 meter bridge. Moments later, the jump went catastrophically wrong.
According to reports, the bungee team hired for the activity miscalculated the length of the cord, leaving it too long for the height of the jump. Moraes crashed headfirst into the ground below.
Emergency responders rushed him to a hospital in Mairinque, but he later died from severe head injuries.
His wife, brother and six year old son witnessed the fatal accident.
Brazilian outlet Diario reported that Moraes had originally planned to make the jump alongside his son. However, he reportedly decided at the last minute to complete the jump by himself.
Following the incident, authorities opened an investigation and seized the bungee equipment used during the jump as part of their inquiry into what went wrong.
The tragedy came just weeks after another serious bungee jumping accident in South Korea.
In that case, a 29 year old woman plunged approximately 43 meters into the water below after her bungee cord snapped during the jump. She suffered serious injuries to her head and neck but survived the fall. The operator of the attraction was later charged with negligence.
Another fatal accident occurred in 2000 in the Swiss Alps, where 22 year old American tourist Matthew Coleman died during a commercial bungee jump.
Coleman was taking part in the experience with a group of friends while vacationing in Europe when workers reportedly attached the wrong length cord before his jump from a ski gondola suspended more than 300 feet above the ground.
Investigators said video recorded before the jump appeared to show staff connecting the incorrect cord.
Adventure World founder Georg Hoedle later acknowledged that employees had mistakenly used a cord designed for jumps of around 600 feet instead of one intended for the approximately 330 foot drop Coleman was making.
According to Hoedle, the company’s ropes were color coded to help prevent mistakes, with green ropes designated for shorter jumps and red ropes for longer ones. Despite that system, the wrong cord was reportedly attached.
“There is no explanation for it,” Hoedle said at the time. “They just made the mistake.”
Coleman, who worked for a Coca Cola bottling company in Maryland, had traveled to Europe with six friends on a 10 day holiday. Family members said he had phoned his mother just days earlier to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and tell her about his plans to try bungee jumping.
Relatives also said they did not believe he had ever gone bungee jumping before.
After his death, Coleman’s uncle called for the activity to be banned, arguing that no one could guarantee it was completely safe and saying he hoped no other family would have to experience a similar loss.
