The 16-year-old girl who was seriously injured after getting pushed off a 60-foot-tall bridge in a Washington state park spoke to reporters from the hospital Thursday, saying she “could have died, easily.”
Jordan Holgerson ended up there Tuesday with five broken ribs, a bruised esophagus, air bubbles in her lungs and injuries to her trachea. The viral video footage of the incident shows Holgerson hesitating to jump off a bridge in Moulton Falls, a park about 40 miles north of Portland, before being shoved by a woman who has been identified as an adult family friend.
She told KATU that she wanted to jump off the bridge after seeing her friend do it, but decided against it at the last moment.
“She was counting down, but I didn’t think anything of it,” Holgerson told the station. “And I was like, ‘No, don’t count down, like, I won’t go if you count down. I’m not ready.’ And then, she pushed me.”
Holgerson said she doesn’t remember the fall but was aware when she hit the water, adding that she didn’t feel any pain in the immediate aftermath of the plunge. She attempted to pull herself forward during the three-story fall so that her feet would enter the water first but it didn’t work.
She was helped to shore by an off-duty EMT who saw her drowning.
“And then an EMT that was off-duty helped me onto the rocks and just a whole bunch of people surrounding me were helping me, calming me down,” she told KATU.
The bridge sits above a bucolic and rocky stretch of the East Fork of the Lewis River in Yacolt, Wash. Holgerson was taken to PeaceHealth Southwest Washington Medical Center in nearby Vancouver, Wash., and was released Thursday night, according to KOIN.
“She is lucky she is not paralyzed or dead,” Genelle Holgerson, the girl’s mother, told Thoroughbred Daily News. “She is alert but in pain and is very tired. We’re lucky she is going to recover and not have permanent injuries.”
Kaiytlin Holgerson, the girl’s sister, said she confronted the family friend who pushed Jordan off the bridge, despite a sign warning against jumping into the river.
“Friends don’t push someone from that high, so I was pissed,” she told KOIN. “She pretty much said that she was sorry for doing it and she wouldn’t have done it if she knew the outcome of it and that she knows it was an absurd thing to do.
“I think the girl that pushed her should have some sort of consequence because you won’t learn your lesson if you think you can could do that again and think it will be fine.”
Holgerson was told by doctors to rest for several weeks, according to KATU, and says she won’t be able to try out for her high school volleyball or soccer team.
The original video that went viral has been deleted from YouTube and the incident is being investigated by the Clark County Sheriff’s office, according to the Longview Daily News.
