That would be one incident in 2015 in Spain, only the cause was that the victim (a young Dutch woman) spoke English too well.
The Spanish operator had not attached the cord yet and told her „No jump!“. Only, „No jump!“ did not make sense to her (being Dutch, she of course had good English), so she understood „Now jump!“.
(I understand Spanish no does double duty for ‚no‘ and ‚not’, hence the operator‘s phrase in broken English).
How do they know?
Also, her English couldn’t have been that good if that was the case. I wouldn’t have jumped immediately if I heard “No Jump!”.
Or even “Now jump”. Some things you want to make absolutely sure
Yeah, I’m, for practical purposes, monolingual, and while I’d recognize “no jump” as ungrammatical, I’d also understand exactly what it means. I think it’s more likely that she didn’t hear the “no” at all, than that she misinterpreted it as “now”.
Of course, if I were ever to go bungee jumping, I also would keep a careful eye on every step of the preparations, and make sure that I could independently verify that everything was connected, and that there was documentation of proper inspections for everything, before I stepped off the edge. And if I were operating a bungee-jumping event, I’d make sure that there was an employee maintaining physical contact with every customer, and a clear physical barrier, until I had likewise verified everything.
And I wouldn’t let them anywhere near the edge before I was certain they were fully secured.
I’m having trouble understanding why someone operating a bungee jump would ever, ever disconnect the bungee cord from the platform. If you absolutely must, like if you’re replacing an old cord with a new one, attach it to the platform first, and only then onto the person who’s about to jump.
The group in this incident doesn’t seem to be professionals, but rather some people trying to make money without knowing what they’re doing while risking people’s lives.
A tragic incident like this seems like an inevitability.
Decades ago when we were living in Carson City, in the rural part east of the city proper, one afternoon a helicopter started hovering about fifty feet over our corral. It didn’t have police markings on it and I don’t know what it was up to but it looked like it intended to land. Now, the corral was the only open level spot in the vicinity that wasn’t a road but, forgetting the whole private property thing,
After staring a moment I ran inside, fetched the Mini-14, and came back out to hold it over my head in both hands. I didn’t have a magazine in it but I had one in my pocket. After a moment it flew off. I was so mad I didn’t get the N-number.
Honestly, I expected a visit but nothing happened.
Read the same: this was a fly-by-night unpermitted operation.
It wasn’t an actual bungee jump, looking at that rather thin cord. More of a rope jump-the rope stretches slightly, just enough to absorb the sudden stop…well, absorb some of it.
It looks like a stunt that dumb kids would come up with. Not a real operation.
The Wiki on rope jumping is rather eye-opening. In fact, the originator died when it failed to work: Rope jumping - Wikipedia
Per the Wikipedia article:
Rope jumping is considered a very dangerous sport that requires extensive technical knowledge and preparation to be done safely.
Even if they’d attached the rope, these guys could have likely killed her.
I think I’ll skip it.
It just mentions in passing he died in 1998 when his anchor system failed.
Skipping rope is probably safe.
Skipping all rope sports is probably safer.
I try not to kink shame folks who are into rope sports.
Watch the footage. They didn’t forget to connect the rope to the platform; they forgot to connect the rope to her. They just picked up a girl and threw her off a bridge.
No, that lady skipped the rope, and it was very unsafe.