YACOLT, Wash. (KOIN) — She’s standing on the bridge’s edge, but in the video gone viral you can clearly see 16-year-old Jordan Holgerson start to change her mind. She’s about to back out.
“She said ‘no’ in the video,” Jordan’s sister, Vanessa, said. “And then she pushed her.”
Instead of safely getting off the bridge, a family friend comes up from behind and pushes an unsuspecting Jordan, sending her off the edge and 60 feet into the water below. Jordan is recovering with five broken ribs and a collapsed lung. She was able to leave the hospital Thursday night.
Moulton Falls, despite the sign saying not to do it, is a popular place to jump. Jordan considered making the leap, but decided against it. Then, Vanessa said the friend pushed her sister.
“I think she tried to do it jokingly and didn’t think what could have happened,” Vanessa said. “You don’t really play around at 60 feet.”
Watch below: Jordan Holgerson meets with the media, August 9, 2018
Regardless, Jordan’s other sister, Kaytlin, said a true friend wouldn’t have done that.
“Friends don’t push someone from that high,” she said, “so I was pissed.”
That’s why Kaytlin said she confronted the girl who pushed her sister on social media, looking for 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.
But an apology might not be enough, 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,” Kaytlin said.
The family hopes the video will be a lesson for people to stay away from the bridge altogether.
“It’s just scary. I’m shocked”
Jordan Holgerson met with the media from a large room at PeaceHealth Southwest on Thursday and said she is happy to be OK.
The teenager said she’s in a lot of pain without her medication to treat her injuries, including 5 broken ribs and air bubbles in her chest.
As she was falling, 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.”
When she hit the water, she said she “couldn’t breathe. So that’s all I was thinking about.”
She can’t play sports for a while and she can’t go on an airplane for 3 months, she told the assembled press, including members of the national media.
But she’s supposed “to keep walking and make my lungs healthier.”
She’s seen the video. “It’s just scary. I’m shocked.” But she said she’s not afraid to go back into the water.
“No,” she said. “I’m still going to have fun.”
“I’m thankful for my helpers and all my other helpers,” the teen said. “A lot of people who I don’t know who are helpers on the Internet.”
Watch: Jordan Holgerson meets with the media, August 9, 2018
