Heather Friesen, a 26-year-old hiker, barely escaped with her life after falling down more than 50-feet of a waterfall and catching it all on video.
Let the following video be a lesson to travelers everywhere: you can get too close to the edge of a waterfall. The bad news is if you do, and you happen to fall, you may not be as lucky as Friesen, who narrowly escaped with her life after careening down the rocks and not hitting her head.
** Warning: the video is a bit tough to watch but she is ok and is now telling her story.
As nature travelers might be prone to do, the video starts with Friesen trying to get a better view of the beauty surrounding her. She says 'whoa' as she looks down to see how gorgeous the waterfall is. But, before she knows it, she's falling 50 feet down the waterfall as she steps on a wet patch of rock and can't keep her balance.
Her Go-Pro catches the entire thing. Even though it's difficult to make out everything, you can tell she's bouncing off the rocks before finally hitting the water. She stays under for quite some time.
Friesen was lucky in that nearby hikers saw the fall, one was friends with air rescue and they were able to get to her quickly. She left the scene with only a collapsed lung. "I couldn't breathe very well I knew that something had to be wrong," she told ABC News. "I tasted blood in my mouth."
How Many Ways Can One Person Get Lucky?
Watching the video, knowing Friesen is now ok seems harmless. Yet, if you think about it, it's extremely easy to understand how this could have ended differently. The ABC News story uses the word '"lucky" over and over, one anchor even pointing out how many times they used the adjective.
They weren't wrong.