One of the men charged in connection with the death of a 21-year-old woman thrown from a Brazilian bridge without a safety rope was previously filmed performing a terrifying stunt from the same location with a child clinging to him, footage shared on social media has revealed.
Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, one of three men charged with homicide with implied malice over the death of Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, shared numerous videos of reckless jumps from Skeleton Bridge in Limeira, São Paulo on social media, some posted as recently as April. One clip, filmed in 2023, shows him holding a rope in one hand and a smiling child in the other as he leaps from the same bridge where Maria fell to her death on 13 June. In a separate video from February, Egoroff and another instructor launched a jumper in the exact same “airplane-style” position Maria was placed in moments before she was thrown from the bridge without being attached to a rope.
Maria, who fell around 130 feet to the ground below, was not dead on impact, according to a nurse who rushed to help her. Rayza Dias told Brazilian television that Maria was still breathing and had a weak pulse when she attempted to provide first aid. “I even talked to her,” Dias said. “I have a habit of joking and saying, ‘Nobody dies on my shift.'”
Egoroff and fellow instructors Vitor de Freitas Gonçalves, 27, and Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, were arrested after police tracked them down at the Skeleton Bridge trail with helicopter support, having allegedly changed their clothes and fled the scene following Maria’s fall. When questioned about whose responsibility it was to attach the rope, both Egoroff and Cintra reportedly told police they could not remember. Egoroff told officers he earned around £26 per jump and said equipment checks were carried out “jointly,” with no single person designated as responsible for final safety checks. “Sometimes we don’t put it in, someone else checks, someone else checks, someone else puts it in,” he reportedly told police. “Sometimes one person does it, then another comes and sees if it’s right.”
Their lawyer, Rafael Gomes dos Santos, said: “They are in a state of shock. They cannot explain what happened because they have been doing this for years. Nothing like this has ever happened.”
A man known only as Emanuel, who had jumped from the same bridge hours before the tragedy, suggested rushed conditions on the day may have contributed to the fatal lapse. He told local media that rain delays had created a significant backlog of waiting participants, and that the crew appeared to be under pressure to clear the queue. “It was a very atypical day. It had rained, there were delays and there were many people waiting to jump,” he said. “In my perception as a participant, the organisation left a lot to be desired. Obviously what happened is not acceptable and cannot be explained away. But in my opinion there was a lack of professionalism. The positive impression I had of the experience completely fell apart.”
Maria’s mother, Valdenia, posted a heartfelt tribute on Instagram. “That damned rope took you away from me forever,” she wrote. “My beloved daughter, only today I wanted to hug you more than a thousand times. How it’s hurting me your departure. I love you forever, my princess. And thank you so much for being a part of my life during those 21 years. What an honour it was to hear you call me a mother. God, thank you for that privilege.”
The local mayor of Limeira, Murilo Felix, said the operator group had been a cause for concern for years and criticised the federal government’s failure to impose proper safety controls at the site. “In addition to the circumstances that led to the young woman’s death, it is necessary to establish who is responsible for the lack of access control to a federal area which, for years, has posed known risks and is still without the necessary safety measures,” he said. “We have been calling for action for months to ensure that the Federal Government assumes its responsibility. Unfortunately, its failure to act has just resulted in yet another tragedy in Limeira.”
Skeleton Bridge has a history of fatal incidents. In April 2024, a 39-year-old cyclist fell to her death from the same structure. Three others were arrested following Maria’s death but have not been charged.
