Officials are investigating the deadly accident. (Representative pic)
A 41-year-old woman has died after she slipped from her safety harness and fell more than 60 feet while riding a zipline in Italy. According to the New Zealand Herald, Ghizlane Moutahir died on Sunday in front of her family members after slipping from the safety harness at Fly Emotion Park in Lombardo, Italy. The adventure sport was supposed to take her 750 feet above the beautiful scenery at huge speeds before coming to a standstill. However, her safety harness failed to hold her as she was approaching the end of the ride, and she fell more than 60 feet to her death from the zipline, sparking an investigation.
Citing witnesses, the New Zealand Herald reported that Ms Moutahir was approaching the end of the 96-kilometre-per-hour zipline when she began to struggle before slipping out. Paramedics rushed to the scene to try to save her but police said that she died instantly upon impact.
“We still don’t know precisely what may have happened. I am shocked and in disbelief,” Matteo Sanguineti, CEO of the Fly Emotion company, told Italian news outlet TODAYNews. “We are at the complete disposal of the judiciary which is now investigating. And we are close to the victim’s family. Over 200 thousand people will have flown on the crossing between the towns of Bema and Albaredo. I am shocked and incredulous,” Mr Sanguineti added.
Ms Moutahir’s two nieces were with her at the time of the tragedy. They filmed the entire incident while completing the zipline course themselves.
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Police said that the 41-year-old stopped on the steel cable and was suspended in the air for several seconds. Cops believe that she likely “began to struggle” after realising she had stopped. “This led to her becoming unbalanced and she fell from the harness around 20m into the forest below and was killed instantly,” a police spokesperson said. “It’s also possible she had some sort of panic attack and that’s what made her struggle or maybe some other medical episode but we are waiting for the post-mortem results,” they added.
Officials are investigating the deadly accident. They will carry out checks of the safety equipment and, as a precaution, have temporarily closed the park, NZ Herald reported. They will also examine the video taken by Ms Moutahir’s two nieces to carefully understand the fatal incident.