Investigations are ongoing into how a routine bungee jump over a ravine in Spain ended up in the horrific death of a 23-year-old British-Portuguese student.
Kleyo de Abreu is purported to have slammed into the wall of a nearby stone bridge after leaping from the higher steel Tablete Bridge, in Lanjeron, 56km from Granada, on Tuesday afternoon.
Initial reports coming from the scene suggest the accident was caused by a “miscalculation in the length of the elastic rope used”.
When Spanish police arrived at the scene they found bloodstains “clearly visible” on the lower bridge, and the body of the young woman – whose mother is reported to be of South-African/Portuguese extraction – still hanging from the bungee rope.
Kleyo’s aunt, with whom the young woman was spending a holiday, witnessed the horror which has since been splashed over British TV screens and widely covered in British and Portuguese media.
Her British father told Sky News that his daughter was a “beautiful young woman with all her life ahead of her”. He added that the family “was all on the same page” and simply wanted to make sure a similar tragedy “doesn’t happen to anyone else again”.
Bungee jumping enthusiasts have echoed the thoughts, stressing the sport in the main is well-run and safe. But according to UK newspapers the adventure firm running the fateful jump has been unavailable for any kind of comment since the disaster.
The Daily Mail carried a report yesterday quoting a source who claimed the firm “advertised jumps with the offer of alcoholic drinks”.
The source, “who did not want to be named, said it was normal for beer cans to be left on the bridge after the company organised jumps, and described the combination of alcohol and bungee-jumping as ‘worrying’”, claimed the report.
Kleyo had recently moved to London after studying fashion design in South Africa.
