Girl breaks spine falling 200 feet from suspension bridge in tourist park after snag in safety harness
An eleven-year-old girl recently had a close encounter with death as she fell 60 meters from a suspension bridge and broke her spine. The incident happened at the Tangli Happy Play Valley, in the northwestern city of Dalian, China. While the date of the incident was not specified, it seemed it happened in May since the park reopened on May 3 after the coronavirus lockdown.
According to reports, the unidentified young girl fell through one of the one-foot-wide gaps between the glass planks on the bridge and fell to the ground when her safety harness failed. The bridge, known as 'Bubu Jingxin' or 'Startling Steps', has now been temporarily shut down. However, other attractions in the Tangli Happy Play Valley remain open.
The girl was reportedly tied to the safety harness belt, but at the time of the accident it did not help and she fell through the purposely designed breaks between planks on the bridge. The cord reportedly failed and the child fell to nearly 200 feet to the forest floor below, while suffering bruises to her head, a concussion, lung injuries, and fractures to her spine in the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae.
Despite these serious injuries, the girl survived. After the incident, the Tangli Happy Play Valley also released a statement and confirmed that the child was taken from the park to the hospital, where she remains in a stable condition. Meanwhile, an investigation into the case has been launched, looking at the causes and failures that led to the girl's fall. The ‘Startling Steps' will remain closed until the investigation reaches a satisfactory conclusion.
The ‘Startling Steps' is reportedly one of six 'challenges' that the park offers to its visitors. It stretches a gap of 280 meters at a height of nearly 60 meters, allowing visitors to take in the spectacular views of the forested valley that the park in Liaoning Province offers. In addition to this, the Tangli Happy Play Valley also has a glass-bottomed bridge, a large high altitude swing, a transparent tube slide, and a metal step trail.
In another incident, a woman fell to her death when she went outside to celebrate the end of the local coronavirus lockdown in Turkey. On April 26, Olesia Suspitsina, a Kazakh national, was out with her friend in Anatyla’s picturesque Duden Park when the incident happened.
The 31-year-old was reportedly walking in the popular Duden Park, known for its scenic waterfalls, after weeks of the stay-at-home order. During the outing, she decided to take a photo on the edge of a cliff with the waterfalls in the background. In order to do that, she scaled a safety barrier so her friend could capture her standing on the cliff’s edge. However, Suspitsina’s adventurous plan turned out to be disastrous when her legs slipped on the grass and she lost her balance and fell off the 115 foot (35 meters) cliff to her death.
As per reports, her terrified friend then called local authorities for help. Suspitsina’s body was found and pulled out of the water by local rescuers before sending it to the Antalya Forensic Medicine Institute’s morgue.