Earlier this week came the shocking news that a teen's prank had some disastrous consequences. Many of us would have been in a similar situation to 16-year-old Jordan Holgerson at some point - uncertain whether to do something risky as our friends pressure us to go through with it. But most of the time, it's a lot less dangerous - and no one goes as far as to literally push you into it.
A video emerged of Jordan as she was pushed off the Moulton Falls bridge in Washington state this week, falling 60 feet down into the water below. As the video starts, she'd had second thoughts about jumping, but after a shove from a family friend, she soon hit the water. Soon after, she was taken to the hospital, with five broken ribs and a lung injury.
In an interview with local media outlets, Jordan's mother Genelle said:
"Recovery’s gonna be slow with her ribs, and her chest. I don’t see any hopes of leaving today. If she fell a different way she could have broken her neck, become paralysed. She could have died. My daughter’s gonna have a long road to recovery and I think that she should probably just turn herself in – realise what she did wrong.
"This is not okay. She could have killed my daughter."
"She said no in the video and then she pushed her," Jordan's sister, Vanessa, said. "I think she tried to do it jokingly and didn't think what could have happened. You don't really play around at 60 feet."
Jordan's other sister, Kaytlin, echoed Vannessa's statements about the friend in question. "Friends don't push someone from that high," she said. Kaitlyn later confronted the culprit over social media, hoping to find an apology.
"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," Kaytlin said. "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."
Now that she has partially recovered, Jordan has made her first statements on what happened, after meeting with the media at PeaceHealth Southwest on Thursday. KOIN6 reported that as she was fallng, she said she "wasn't thinking about anything, just what to do. What am I supposed to do?"
She did say that while she was in the air she tried "to push myself straight so my feet would hit first. That didn't work." She attempted to straighten herself out during the fall, but ended up landing on her right side:
"In the air I think I might have fainted. But I hit the water I was definitely awake and aware. I couldn't breathe so that was all I was really thinking about.
"I have five broken ribs, I have air bubbles in my chest. I could have died easily.
"I'm thankful for my helpers and all my other helpers. A lot of people who I don't know who are helpers on the Internet."
However, she's not afraid to return to the water, saying that "I'm still going to have fun". There was a sign warning people not to jump or dive from the bridge, and Jordan insists that people in the area take it seriously.
