According to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, an unnamed woman attempted to take a selfie on a restricted area of the 730-foot-tall Foresthill Bridge, located close to Auburn, Ca. The woman fell 60 feet onto the path below the bridge and was lucky to survive. As reported by the Sacramento Bee, the woman was with a group of friends on the catwalk below the bridge when she attempted to take the selfie but instead fell 60 feet down on to the trail below.
The woman was then airlifted to the Sutter Roseville Medical Center where she is expected to survive.
There is no report, as yet, of the injuries suffered by the woman. However, she was lucky to fall on the path, as the sheriff’s office did say no one would survive the full drop to the bottom of the American River Canyon.
It is illegal to be on the Foresthill Bridge walkways
According to the Sheriff’s office, pedestrians are not allowed on the walkways on the bridge and could be cited or arrested if found in any closed area. In fact the Sheriff’s office has had problems before with people breaking the law on the catwalk. Reportedly back in February 2015 dozens of people were cited for just that reason, with 34 of them being caught on the same day. A few days later, four more teenagers were ticketed on the Foresthill Bridge.
Woman snapping selfie falls 60 feet from California bridge https://t.co/G8pAIjzpNB pic.twitter.com/6gAoGX1412
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) April 6, 2017
The Placer County Sheriff’s Office hopes a lesson has been learned from this woman’s experience and posted on their Facebook page that the young woman is lucky to be alive and that things could have been much worse for her and her family.
The post told the public to stay safe and tour the bridge from the sidewalks above.
Impressing friends on social media
KCRA3 quotes an Auburn resident, Ciara McKenzie, as saying this kind of thing is going to keep on happening because people just want to impress their friends by posting selfies on social media.
Speaking for the Sheriff’s office, Dena Erwin said they often hand out citations for the same thing this woman attempted.
She said that one misstep could kill someone, adding that daredevils are getting braver these days. Erwin said that under peer pressure, people are doing stupid things and they want to stop this before someone actually dies.
