Teen Plunges To Death As Homemade Parachute Fails [Video]

A teen fell to his death in Makiivka, Ukraine, after being encouraged by his own mother to try out his homemade parachute.

The horrific incident was captured in a video, recorded by his friends, which showed 15-year-old Bogdan Firson spreading out his arms before jumping from a 14-story-building. Although the parachute was deployed, it failed to open properly during the 140 feet plunge, pushing the teen to his death.

Warning: This video might be disturbing to some readers

The homemade parachute could be seen trailing behind the teen as he took the jump. The moment Firson touched the ground was not seen in the video due to a low-lying structure in the front blocking the view. Although the ground below had some kind of a padding, the teen almost died instantly after hitting the bottom.

It is unclear when the incident happened.

“A crowd of people was there and nobody tried to stop him. They only filmed,” an eyewitness said, The Sun reported. “People are not human any longer, they have lost all common sense. It happened right in front of my eyes. The boy jumped down with a parachute. He flew down and hit the ground with his back. It was really tough.”

Other witnesses said the boy waited for two minutes on rooftop of the building before jumping and that he was wearing a helmet. Firson spent some time taking selfies before attempting what turned out to be a tragic feat.

Firson’s mother was among the people who gathered to watch what was supposed to be a daring stunt. According to local reports, the teen’s mother joined the spectators in "encouraging and cheering him on" and yet no one tried to stop the teen from performing the dangerous jump. Afterward, the mother was “so shocked by his death that she refused to leave the spot”.

Apparently, the woman, whose name has not been revealed, believed the homemade parachute would slow down her son’s fall and hence encouraged him to try out the stunt. However, according to an expert who spoke to a local newspaper, Firson would not have survived the fall even if he had a fully functioning parachute with him.

“The lowest possible height for a jump with a parachute is 70 meters (229 feet) – a building of at least 25 stories. And even then it would have been a dangerous jump,” the expert told Ukrainian news outlet Fakti. Firson was jumping from roughly 42 meters (138 feet).

In November, a German base jumper was killed after his parachute failed to deploy when he dove off a cliff in Nazaré, a fishing town in Portugal. The 50-year-old unnamed man was crushed as he hit the rocks at the back of Praia do Norte, a sandy beach in Nazaré. The 18-second clip of the incident, uploaded on the YouTube channel Star News, blurred the point when the jumper hit the rocks.