Video captures Hawaii cliff jumper’s final moments before fatal fall
Horrifying cell phone video shows a cliff jumper’s fatal leap off the infamously dangerous Spitting Cave cliffs in Hawaii on Saturday — which left the mortally-wounded daredevil floating in the waters below as bystanders looked on.
Santiago Bourdieu, a 28-year-old rugby player and fitness instructor, got a running-start as he catapulted toward the cliff’s edge just after 6 p.m. — but then he plummeted straight down the rocky, 50-foot face, according to a video published on Instagram.
The vacationing Bourdieu didn’t resurface after the botched landing, and a friend leaped into the surf to track down his missing pal, The Mirror reported.
When the footage resumed, it showed lifeguards from the Honolulu Department of Ocean Safety climbing down the rocks to search for him.
About 15 minutes later, they found Bourdieu — who worked as a gym teacher at St. Nicholas’ School in Buenos Aires — in the choppy waves.
Rescuers performed CPR, and he reportedly responded to the treatment. But he died later at the hospital.
Perched near Honolulu on the island of Oahu, the Spitting Cave cliffs are one of the island’s most visited attractions, The Mirror reported.
The name springs from the violent ocean’s constant battering of the stone, which makes it seem like the cave is “spitting out” the water.
Several people have died at the Spitting Cave, with Honolulu Ocean Safety telling KHON 2 in Hawaii that crews have responded 52 times in the last five years to calls of cliff jumping injuries, drownings or near-drownings.
“If that shelf is wet, you can be dragged right off that shelf and scraped into the water and not be able to get back out,” Brian Lauro, a sea-loving former resident, told the network.
“We also don’t want it to be foamy. If it’s foamy over there, foam has a negative buoyancy, which means you don’t float in foam. It’s like liquid quicksand.”
Ocean Safety has said no one should jump at Spitting Cave, and has posted warning signs.
“Just because [tourists] swim in a swimming pool or swim in a lake or jump in a quarry doesn’t make you qualified to do that here,” Lauro said.
“Even though you tell them not to do it on a day that would be too dangerous for an outsider, they see our kids do it and they’re like, ‘I can do that too,’” he continued.
“Then they get in trouble.”
